Still Waters 2: Another Turn
by RedPBass
Summary: Things have settled down after the events of Still Waters Run Deep, or so everyone thought. Now a sinister new force is eyeing the campus for reasons unknown. Epilogue is up...keep an eye out for Still Waters 3!
1. Prologue

Still Waters, Another Turn Prologue

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There's A Bad Moon On The Rise

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"Is this it…?" the man asked, gesturing at the specimen laid out on the worktable. It was quite large, and would be at least eight feet tall if it were standing. But that hair…

"Yes, this is it," the director said with an annoyed frown. The other man had demanded an inspection of the specimen as soon as it was brought in; they hadn't even had time to start disassembly! "As you can see, it's only a partial specimen, but we have sufficient technology—"

"Will it work?"

He frowned. "Yes, of course it will work. Well, not this one of course, but the versions we create based on—"

"Good. Do you have a timeline yet?"

"Not firm."

"Humor me," the man demanded.

The director swept a hand back through his hair and frowned more deeply. "Two weeks, perhaps three for complete disassembly, then a month or two of study at the very least before the first prototype can be started. No idea on build time, materials may be hard to find; we just don't know. Another month for testing when it is complete, then the second prototype, and we'll go on from there."

"That's quite a bit of time."

"You have to understand, sir. This is technology of a level far surpassing anything current. We're talking about a robot that is decades ahead of anything we have ever seen before. The best humanoid robot anyone has ever made can barely walk, much less turn without falling over. This robot," he said, gesturing to the specimen on the table, "This robot can run, jump, and _fly using a jet engine attached to its back._ Not only that, it can shoot a gun and hit its target, compensating for recoil and outside effects. There were reliable reports of some of these monsters using giant hand held gatling guns, of all things. Can you imagine the implications of that?" The other man just gave him a bored look.

"Look, I've read the reports. I know all about this thing's abilities. I want to know why you say you can't reproduce it in a timely manner."

"A timely manner…" The director just looked at the man before him in disbelief. "Listen Donner, remember those robots I talked about that fall over when they turn around?" He waited until the other man nodded irritably. "Those took _years_ of research just to design, much less build. The only reason we can even remotely plan such a short term build is because one of our agents in the American Division managed to get his hands on the materials that that hacker, Riggs, gathered from the computers at Mahora two weeks ago. Without that programming and those blueprints, we would be ten years from _anything_, much less a working prototype. Even with this specimen."

"Ok, fine. You can't do what a bunch of kids at a small college robotics department did. Fine, I get it. Just get your act together and get a working prototype put together in three months." He held up his hand at the director's immediate outburst. "I don't care about any problems, I just need something to show the board, and I'm not talking about some computer chip or a mechanical arm." He looked back at the robot laid out on the table. "If you can do that, Roy, I'll see to it that your department receives proper funding for certain other projects," Donner said. "You know what I mean. Now get to work."

Roy Wheeler watched Donner leave. "Proper funding, is it?" That had shut him up quickly. And enough of the 'proper funding' to work on his secret pet project too. Donner was an irritating man, but he knew how to make people work. He looked down at the robot on the table and vaguely recalled the guy who brought it in referring to it as 'Tanaka-san'. "Well, Tanaka-san. Let's see what makes you tick…"

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Author's Notes: So this is the start of Still Waters 2. As a timeline reference, this prologue takes place just after the waters receded in chapter 21 of Still Waters Run Deep. The rest happens later.

As far as story goes, this iswhat happens a short time after the events in Still Waters Run Deep.


	2. Chapter 1

Still Waters, Another Turn, Chapter 1

Author's Note: Well here we go with part two. I hope you like it. Also, I OWN NOTHING. Not Negima, not the songs whose lyrics I am borrowing, and nothing else that may or may not be referenced throughout the story. I only own the original characters. I suppose the spotty plot belongs to me as well, thought I'm not sure anyone else would want to claim it.

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Easy Come, Easy Go. Little High, Little Low.

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It had been over a month since the students returned to school, but the normal routine was still slightly off. The gym had been badly damaged during the flooding and had yet to be repaired. The athletic fields were heavily pitted and off limits. The students couldn't use the lunch room, because it had sustained quite a bit of burn damage by Arvel, the mage that had destroyed so much of Mahora a couple months ago. Lunch was currently being served from several small shops that the school had set up in one of the plazas that had been relatively unscathed.

All in all, the school and the city itself were far from recovering from the chaos of that day. But that was in the past, and Mahora, while steeped in tradition, was never a city to wallow in bad times.

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Asuna sighed heavily and gazed out through the window as the history teacher droned on about something or other, she wasn't sure what. How was she expected to concentrate on class when she had that special training to look forward too? Eva had said that Asuna would face a demon today after school, and that was a lot better than listening to a bored teacher babbling about some guy she had never heard of who did something and then died three hundred years ago.

Soon enough, the last class of the day ended, and Asuna was free. Slinging the sword case containing the evil sword she had received from Eishun over her shoulder, she practically ran from the classroom in her eagerness to get outside, struggling to hold the bouncing case in place. Setsuna had instructed her to carry the sword at all times, so she would become used to its weight…apparently, you couldn't just pick up a sword somewhere and instantly be able to use it perfectly like people did on TV. Setsuna kept repeating that you had to get used to a sword to use it well.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, she found Madoka waiting for her at the front of the school, and the two of them headed for Eva's place. Madoka had been training with Eva as well, if one could call it that. More like using Eva's resort to train and then getting yelled at. Asuna didn't know all the details, but the other girl apparently had a strong ability to use ki, the same as Setsuna. The cheerleader had been uncharacteristically quiet in the time since the big battle against Oscar Marshall, but the two of them had grown fairly close over the past two months, and the cheerleader was now a common sight around campus with the more active members of Negi's group.

They met up with Chachamaru outside of Eva's cabin, and went down to the resort.

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"No no no! What are you, stupid?" Eva shouted after Madoka broke yet another wall, having completely missed her target. Unfortunately, Eva had been in the building that the wall belonged to.

"I'm sorry," Madoka said again as she looked down at her fist, still a little surprised at her strength. She had been trying to learn the so-called 'long hit' that had been used to great effect during the tournament, but it was a lot harder to get it to go where you wanted than it looked.

"Control! You have to learn control or you'll never be able to use it," Eva lectured. This was something she had drilled in Madoka's head since the beginning.

As for Madoka, her control had gotten much better, but was still far too unrefined to risk using it against a real opponent, lest the other person end up a bloody splotch with a twenty foot radius. Madoka imagined her power felt something like a high pressure water faucet, where you only had a quarter inch of play between 'nothing' and 'full blast', and her control was sloppy at best. The first time she had blown up a desk had been a big surprise, and blown amps were pretty expensive to replace as well. She still remembered the glare Misa had given her when she fried her friend's one-of-a-kind guitar. Luckily, she had managed to learn enough control to get to the point where she no longer caused everything she touched to explode or short out dramatically, but whatever she targeted tended to be reduced to a fine powder, even if she only intended to knock it over. There had even been a short time just after school resumed where everyone she touched or bumped into complained that she was full of static electricity.

"No! How many times do I have to tell you?!"

Yes, she definitely needed practice.

"Eva-chan~" Asuna called out as she approached.

Eva executed a nice facepalm and turned to glare at the approaching redhead. "What now?"

Asuna looked sheepishly at Eva and grinned hopefully. "I, ah…accidentally unsummoned that fake demon…thing you made. Can you make another one…?" Eva had only done it because Negi had begged her to help Asuna, and the idiot was really getting on her nerves. Those things took a lot of energy to make, after all.

Eva sent one of her better deathglares at Asuna, then turned back to Madoka. "Don't break any more walls. Your target is that rock, got it? Not the fence, not the building over there, but the rock. If I come back and find that you broke another wall I will make you regret it, understand?"

"Er…I understand," Madoka answered. Eva-san was surprisingly intimidating for someone that looked ten years old. Her initial reaction to learning the truth about Eva-san was disbelief…it took a match between Eva and Negi-sensei to drive the point home, and Madoka hadn't known what to do with herself in her excitement over the possibilities that the concept of magic presented. Unfortunately, she had no feel for magic at all, and had been forced to settle for learning how to use ki, which she was a natural at, according to Setsuna. Now, if she could just figure out how to use a level of power somewhere between 'zero' and 'maximum'…

"Good. Now you," she said, pointing at Asuna. "Come with me," Eva said as she walked past the red head, who shot an embarrassed grin at Madoka. That had been the second fake demon Asuna had unsummoned today. It wasn't as if she was trying to unsummon them, it just kind of…happened. The red head heaved a deep breath as she followed Eva; it seemed that she needed more practice in controlling her abilities as well.

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Jennifer laughed as she walked alongside Akira, listening to a story the taller girl recounted from earlier in the day.

"So Asuna-chan fell asleep in class and poked herself in the head with her pencil? That sounds like something Max would do," she said with a smile that Akira returned. The girl had thought the same thing when she saw it.

"Hey, Jennifer, Akira," Max said as he approached the duo and slipped an arm around Jennifer's waist.

"Well, speak of the devil. Anyway, 'san', Max. You forgot the –san again," Jennifer said.

"Right, right. Akira-san."

Jennifer and Akira got along shockingly well, considering what had happened before Jennifer's arrival. Max had kissed this girl after all, and that was usually a bad thing for any relationship. But Jennifer understood quite well what had been behind it, and she sort of understood the connection the two elementals shared, or thought she did. They were connected on a very deep level, seeming almost able to read each other's minds. She had heard that that was a fairly common thing when two elementals were friendly with each other long enough. They got on the same wavelength, so to speak. She was a bit jealous of that connection of course, but it wasn't as though it was stronger than her own connection with Max. You didn't get much closer than a permanent Magister and Ministra, after all. Besides, the girl was Max's apprentice, and there was no way around that. It wasn't as though there were any other elementals around to train the girl. Besides, while Max may have been prey to wild throes of emotion, he always ended things abruptly when he realized what he was doing, which, unfortunately, usually seemed to be the instant his lips touched the other person's.

"So, how about I take you two ladies out for dinner?"

Jennifer and Akira looked at each other and nodded simultaneously. This was a rare thing, it wouldn't do to waste the opportunity.

Max never had any money, after all.

So, with a girl on each arm and nothing worrying on his mind, Max strutted down the street, feeling like a million bucks for the first time in a long time.

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Negi sat on his bed, staring at the sheathed sword.

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"Nothing." Not a single shiver. Asuna's sword was always shaking or falling over, as if whatever was sealed inside wanted out desperately. His, however…

"It's no good, aniki," Kamo said.

'Perhaps Kamo-kun is right, maybe there was a mistake and this sword is just a normal one. But Setsuna-san said…' Negi thought.

His musing was interrupted by someone pounding on his door.

"Negi-kun, Negi-kun! Hey, let me in!"

"I'm coming, Yuuna-san!" Negi said as he climbed down from the loft and welcomed an excited Yuuna. "Hello Yuuna-san." Yuuna had perhaps fared the best of them all, considering what had happened to the girl. She had been incredibly lucky that Konoka's healing powers had been at their monthly peak. If not, Yuuna would have died without a doubt. No one had had a chance to examine her before the battle ended so abruptly, but after the water receded they had rushed her to a doctor, who had declared her to be dangerously exhausted and heavily bruised both internally and externally, but otherwise fine. Quite surprising, considering what Akira had recounted of Yuuna's condition after Oscar Marshall, the wood elemental, had squeezed her half to death and then shot giant thorns through her.

Yes, Konoka's healing magic had saved her life without a doubt.

"Hey, Negi. Can you teach me a new spell? I'm tired of the fire one," she said urgently.

Negi held back a tired sigh. Yuuna had been quite insistent on learning the practice of magic right away, but Negi had refused to give in. He hadn't wanted the girl to get involved at all, but she refused to give it up, so he had had no choice but to teach her, lest she experiment on her own and get hurt. "The basic theory is more important right now, Yuuna-san," he explained again while the girl pouted and crossed her arms.

"Oh, Kamo-kun!"

"Wha—Ah! Aniki, help!"

"Kamo-kun is so cute and fuzzy, I had no idea he was like a magical girl's pet too," Yuuna said, rubbing her face on the poor ermine and tickling him.

"I'm an ermine spirit, a familiar. I'm not some magical girl's pet," Kamo said testily after he extricated himself from the girl's crushing grip.

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Mana, finally released from the hospital, made her way slowly through the campus to the dorm building, which had survived the chaos intact. She was thinner and weak as a kitten and still had a limp, but she was back. She saw someone seated on the front steps of the dorm as she approached, and the corner of her mouth twitched upward.

"Hello, Kaede-san."

"Hello, Mana-dono."

The two just looked at each other for a moment, then grinned. Mana almost felt like laughing, in fact. She couldn't explain it easily, but…it was good to be back.

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Things were almost back to normal in Mahora. Rubble was cleared, what was destroyed would be rebuilt, and…

"Captain Fei, you have a challenger!"

"Oho! Bring it on-aru!"

Some were doing better than others, as the poor challenger could tell any who asked.

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"Hey, did you guys ever find that missing unit from the festival?" a college robotics student asked the small group working on another new body for Chachamaru in the university lab.

"Unit 0043, or 1125?" Hakase asked. "No, they probably ended up in the river. We only found 1214 two weeks ago after all, you know?"

The college student nodded. That had just been a fluke, too. A sewer worker had found the damaged Tanaka-san jammed up against a grate and thought he had found a body. The man's startled scream had echoed up through sewer grates for a mile around, providing sufficient fodder for several weeks' worth of storytelling and jokes.

"Yeah, it's not like someone kidnapped it or anything," another student said with a laugh that was shared all around.

"No way that would happen."

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Author's note: A bit of an infodump, eh? Don't worry, the rest won't be like that, this one only was because it's the first chapter of a new story, and background is necessary in this case.


	3. Chapter 2

Still Waters, Another Turn Chapter 2

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Show Me How You Do That Trick

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Misa entered the empty dorm room as quietly as she could and shut the door, waiting beside it for almost a minute in order to listen for anyone's approach. She heard nothing but the sound of someone in the shower. She tiptoed across the room to Madoka's bunk, and was poking around in it when the bathroom door opened.

"What are you doing?"

Misa froze and turned slowly around. "I was…er…looking for a…um…a pen! Yeah!"

"In my bed?" Madoka asked in a disbelieving tone.

"I…dropped it?"

Madoka just gave her a disbelieving look, so Misa gave up the lie and heaved a sigh.

"Fine, fine. I was looking for that stungun or whatever that you used on my guitar. Why did you do that anyway?! The guy at the guitar shop said the pickups are totally ruined!"

Madoka's face flushed red as she sat down and began drying her hair, hoping to avoid answering the question.

"So how long are you going to do that?" Misa asked after a minute or so. "It'll fill up with static if you dry it much longer," she added.

Madoka grabbed some clothes from the dresser and went back into the bathroom to change.

"You can't keep avoiding me like this! I want answers!" the long haired girl shouted half jokingly. "Answers!" She fell on the bathroom door and slid down in a mock-dramatic moment, giving the door a light smack for added effect. "Answerrrrrs!" She grinned when she heard muffled laughter from the other side.

"Excuse me, Kakizaki-san, but what are you doing?"

"Eep!" Misa turned to the entrance and saw Iincho standing in the doorway with an odd look on her face. "Er…I was just leaving!" Misa said and bolted out through the narrow space between the other girl and the door frame.

Madoka chose that moment to poke her head out of the bathroom. "Thanks Iincho!"

"So what was Kakizaki-san talking about?"

"Ah…! It's nothing, Iincho, just a joke we saw in a movie last week," she answered before shutting the bathroom door. "Please close the door when you leave!" she called out.

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The phone rang and Kotarou stood up from the game he was playing with Natsumi. "I'll get it."

Natsumi looked glumly at the game board. Kotarou was winning…somehow. Who knew the kid would be so good at monopoly? Though his strategy seemed to be 'buy what you land on and don't let go of it no matter what', he had acquired several of the most sought-after properties. Also, with his refusal to trade, it seemed likely that the game would boil down to a long, long war of attrition where they slowly rented each other into bankruptcy over the course of seven or eight hours or more. Ugh. She hated that sort of thing. She briefly wondered why she had even agreed to play monopoly, but couldn't really remember…must've been Chizuru's influence. She didn't want to play this all day, so, with a devious look on her face, she reached over the game board to the untidy pile of property titles and money on Kotarou's side and began shuffling through it, looking for Park Place. She had Boardwalk, after all, and if she built a hotel…

"You weren't thinking of cheating against a ten year old boy, were you Natsumi-san?"

Uh oh. She had forgotten about Chizuru, who was seated behind her on the couch. "Er, no, Chizu-nee. Why would you think that?"

Kotarou chose that moment to come back. "That was Negi, he wants to do some training later. Hey!" he exclaimed after a moment. "Somebody messed with my stuff! Were you cheating, Natsumi-nee-chan?" he asked, looking across the board at her orderly stacks of deeds and money.

"No, Kotarou-kun, why would you think that?"

Chizuru smiled serenely from her place on the couch while she turned back to the book she had been reading.

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"Asuna-san!" Ayaka called from across the open space beside the dorm. Asuna pretended to ignore the girl as she walked alongside Setsuna and Konoka.

"Pretend you don't hear her!" the redhead demanded. The other two nodded. They were on their way out into the woods for training, after all. It wouldn't do for Iincho to find out what sort of training that was…far too many people knew about it already.

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Ayaka walked stiffly with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Asuna was hiding something from her. For that matter, so were Kugimiya-san and Kakizaki-san, even Negi-sensei! She had an unsettling feeling that they were all laughing at her, but shrugged it off as paranoia. They might be hiding things, but none of them were cruel. But those dreams she had been having…she put that thought aside.

She continued walking randomly around campus until she spotted Chisame-san looking around furtively for a moment and then run into the woods. Her curiosity piqued, Ayaka followed the other girl into the trees. She had always gotten along fairly well with the withdrawn girl in the past, she thought…well, at least well enough to call her by her given name from time to time, anyway. Was Chisame-san in on this deception as well?

Ayaka entered the woods where she thought the other girl had gone, and was soon thoroughly lost. And to top it off, her long skirt kept getting in her way and hanging up on low-growing bushes. She was considering ripping it to a shorter length when she stumbled out into a clearing and heard the distinct sounds of six people freezing in place.

Arrayed before her were Nodoka-san, Ayase-san, Chisame-san, Konoe-san, Sakurazaki-san, and Asuna-san frozen in various odd poses, all looking at her with clear expressions of apprehension.

"Ah…"

"Oh crap…"

"Iincho!"

"How did she find us…?"

Chisame gaped for a moment and then shook her head. "Don't look at me!"

Ayaka, for her part, was quite confused. Asuna and Sakurazaki-san looked like they were fighting with swords, while the other four were playing with…magic wands? "What are you…?"

"It's a play!" Asuna shouted desperately.

"Really? Which one?" Ayaka asked with real interest. She had an interest in the classics.

Asuna, thinking quickly, named the only play she could think of. "Romeo and Juliet!"

Unfortunately, her answer came just after Yue's "Macbeth."

Everyone else just looked at each other blankly.

"It's a combination!" Baka Red supplied frantically.

"Is that so?" the rich girl asked skeptically. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't heard anything about this. "What part are you playing, Asuna-san?"

"Asuna-san is playing the part of Mercutio," Yue added. "Setsuna-san will play the part of Macbeth."

"Is…is that so," Ayaka asked. "But what about—"

"We have to get back to practice, go ahead and go back to the dorm, Iincho! We'll take it from here!" Asuna shouted enthusiastically as she began to swing her sword around in an exaggerated manner with Setsuna, complete with loud 'Yah!'s and the like.

"But—"

"We've got it! Go home!"

Well, if what she had seen thus far was anything to go by, they certainly needed their practice. So Ayaka went back the way she had come, and soon made her way out of the forest and ended up by the ruined athletic fields.

Somehow, she didn't think they were practicing for a play. She had had her suspicions for quite some time, but…it was impossible, that sort of thing wasn't real. Was it? There were the unusual events during the summer to consider, but… And why was she suddenly suspecting her classmates like this?

"No, I'm imagining things. It's the stress of my position, I suppose. I probably just need some rest," she said aloud in an attempt to provide herself with some much-needed confidence. It didn't work.

"Hello, Iincho. What brings you here?"

The girl looked up at the PE teacher, Max-sensei, and frowned. She still hadn't forgiven him for the kidnapping incident, even though he claimed he had done it for Akira-san's protection. A bit of movement on the far side of the field pulled at her attention, but she ignored it and focused on the teacher standing before her. She had a reputation to uphold, after all, so she bowed politely to him.

"I was going for a walk in the woods, sensei," she replied, not wanting to explain her motivation.

"Really? You should be careful out there, you know. There are wild animals in those woods, and I wouldn't want you to get attacked by a badger or some—" He was cut off with a grunt as a huge hand swatted him aside and sent him flying a dozen feet or more before he hit the ground and rolled to a stop.

Ayaka stumbled backward without looking and tripped and fell down in one of the holes that had populated the athletic fields since the flood. She scrambled back on her bottom just in time to avoid the thing's hand as it lunged for her, and she looked around wildly for some means of escape. The attacker was a Tanaka-san robot, like the ones from the festival. She forced herself to calm down and got to her feet, watching it warily. While she fancied herself a martial artist, she had a feeling she couldn't face something like this, not without a weapon. A quick glance to the side confirmed Max-sensei was still on the ground, though he was moving now. There was no one else around that could help, either. She jumped when the robot's head stopped scanning the field and focused directly on _her_. It extended one robotic arm and approached as she backed up still more. She stumbled into one of the holes again but maintained her balance as she cursed her unusual clumsiness while the robot approached with its dead eyes.

It was huge, easily twice as wide as herself, and a good two feet taller. But…Asuna had beaten lots of these robots during the festival, so they couldn't be _that_ strong. Ayaka picked herself up and warily looked at the robot. Slow, very slow. She glanced over at Max sensei and saw that he was up on hands and knees, coughing. There would most likely be no help from that source before the thing caught her, she thought.

So she set her stance and waited for the robot to get within striking distance.

His feet clumped heavily, leaving footprints in the hard packed dirt of the athletic field. And then he was in range, so she moved. The kick to the robot's stomach brought forth a metallic clang and a bruise on her leg, but nothing else, not even a wobble. She limped back a few steps, then shot forward again, palm aiming for the thing's chin. If she could knock it off balance…

It grabbed her hand.

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Max was in a world of pain. He had gotten a glimpse of a huge hand as it smashed a hammer blow into his side as he turned, and next thing he knew, he was lying twenty feet away. Judging from the blood he was coughing up, something had been ruptured. There was also a sharp pain from his lower ribcage every time he took a deep breath.

He got up to his hands and knees and vomited in spite of his best efforts, the act of retching extremely painful. He looked down and was dismayed to see quite a bit of blood mixed in. A startled shriek brought him back to the events of a moment ago, so he quickly looked toward the robot, which had grabbed Iincho and lifted into the air by her hand. It shook her a few times, then turned and began trudging back the way it had come, still holding her up in the air. That wasn't good.

Max got to his feet and used what little he knew of healing magic to patch himself up enough to walk. It wasn't much, as, being a fire mage, his element wasn't exactly known for its healing abilities, but it would be enough for a temporary patch-job.

He just hoped Konoka would be around afterward.

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Ayaka felt like a rag doll. She had been shaken so violently by the big robot that she was still dizzy, not to mention lucky to still be conscious. People _died_ from getting shaken like that, after all. She heard a distant shout and her vision swam up just in time to see Max sensei break into a trot behind the robot.

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"Let her go!" Max shouted, driving a magically-charged fist into the robot's back, making a big dent in the metal plate and causing it to drop Ayaka and almost overbalance, arms pinwheeling. Punch after punch after punch hit the robot as it turned to face him, slowly driving it backward as the girl scrambled away. "Iincho, call someone for help!" Max yelled, not letting his attention leave the robot. "Hurry!" He wished he had some sort of weapon with him; he couldn't just blast the thing or summon his artifact, Iincho would see. This one wasn't like those he had faced on the third day of the festival; encased in thick armor rather than fake armor plated skin, if he hadn't had his mage shield up he would've shattered every bone in his hand on the first hit, not to mention when the robot had hit him first…this might be tough.

Ayaka fumbled for her cell phone and took it out with clumsy hands. She flipped it open and the top half broke off. She stared at it dumbly for a moment…it must have broken when the robot dropped her. She looked back at Max-sensei just in time to see his fist, on fire, hitting the robot's head and causing it to explode.

A vague sort of unease washed over her. 'His hand was burning, he needs a doctor,' she thought distantly as she dialed an emergency number on her dead cell phone. "It's broken," she said aloud, almost in surprise as she plopped down on the ground again, her shaky legs suddenly refusing to support her.

She looked back up at Max-sensei to tell him about her phone and watched him step warily back from the robot, which was now stumbling around and leaning heavily to its left; apparently some major stabilizing apparatus had been located in its head. The robot continued making a long circle to the left until it stumbled over one of the holes in the ground and came down heavily with a sound not unlike a low speed car wreck. There was a loud pop and an electronic sizzle as its arm jerked spasmodically and then lay still. Another electronic pop, louder than the first, followed as faint blue smoke and the smell of burnt electronics wafted through the air. Max approached the class rep, twitching as he walked, as if in pain.

"Are you ok?" he asked as he offered her a hand up, which she looked at blankly.

"Your hand was on fire," she said.

Max paused. "It's fine, see? You probably imagined it." He watched her closely.

It had definitely been on fire, but she dropped the point; her mind was working oddly. "My phone broke," she said after a moment, showing him the two halves, which were connected by a thin cable.

"That's ok, cell phones are replaceable after all," the teacher said in a failed attempt to be reassuring. He was holding his arm against his side oddly, and his face was even more pale than usual.

"This one was from Asuna-san, after she broke my old one," Ayaka said sadly. Then, as if finally realizing the situation, returned to reality. "Thank you for your help, Max-sensei. I will alert the University Robotics Club that one of their robots has escaped. Thank you."

"No problem," Max said. "Here, you can use my cell, just return it next class, ok? I need to go talk to Konoka, see you later, Iincho." He stopped walking after a moment and turned back. "Oh yeah, stay away from that robot until they come to collect it ok? It could still be dangerous."

"I understand, sensei."

Ayaka watched Max go into the woods and then turned back to look at the robot again. It still gave the occasional twitch, but was otherwise still. It looked kind of strange for a Tanaka-san robot, too. It seemed shorter, for one thing. And the bottom half was built much heavier. Its movements hadn't been the smooth motions she remembered from the festival, either. They had seemed more, well, robotic. Like the way robots in old movies always moved stiffly, arms and legs moving in a jerky manner. Maybe it was an early model? She flipped open Max-sensei's cheap cell phone and made her call to the robotics department.

That robot…why had it grabbed her and not Max-sensei?

She was still pondering these questions when the club members arrived to take their robot back.

----

"Thanks, Konoka. I feel as good as new," Max said, standing up and stretching experimentally. "Tired, but good." It was quite useful to have such a strong healer around, especially in a place with as many 'incidents' as Mahora. He glanced around the small clearing and noticed Nodoka all but hiding behind Yue. Apparently the shy girl was still afraid of him. Chisame was seated on a fallen log with eyes only for her laptop, and Setsuna, Asuna, and Konoka were standing before him.

"No problem, Max-sensei!"

"So, what happened to you, anyway?" Asuna demanded.

"Some robot from the robotics club attacked Iincho," he explained.

Asuna's expression changed to show her worry. "Is she ok?"

"Iincho's fine," Max replied. "I'm pretty sure she saw me use my fire to beat it…I think she accepted my excuse, though. Is she ok? She seemed a bit paranoid."

Asuna looked thoughtful as she nodded. "Now that you mention it, she followed me around after school for a while yesterday. She's been acting pretty weird lately."

----

Chachamaru entered the Robotics Club clubroom. "Hakase, I have come for my weekly maintenance check."

Hakase looked up from her clipboard. "Hmm? Oh, sure. I was just looking at this," she said, gesturing to a partially disassembled robot that lay on a work table.

"I am not familiar with this model," Chachamaru stated as she scanned it.

"Neither am I," Hakase replied. "It looks kind of like one of the Tanaka-sans, but…it's very primitive. Notice how heavy the bottom half is, as if whoever built it was afraid the weight of the torso would cause the legs to buckle if they were smaller. Then there is the question of the armor plating covering the entire frame; there isn't an ounce of artificial skin anywhere on it! Something so graceless isn't any of our work."

Chachamaru noted the information and saved a high resolution picture to her newly-created 'Unknown Robot A: Tanaka Unknown Version' folder.

"There is no trace of magic in its construction, which would explain some design choices. Also, apparently the main balancing mechanism was located in the head." Hakase gave a tsk of disdain. "The head, of all places! What sort of amateur would put such an important system in the head of what amounts to a combat robot?"

"I do not know."

They both stood there for a moment, looking down at the robot.

"It attacked Iincho-san, but Max-sensei stopped it," Hakase said after a moment.

Chachamaru looked at the scientist for a moment. "I will scan the area for others."

"That's a good idea," Hakase said. "We can do your maintenance tomorrow."

"I understand."

----

----

----

Author's Note: Believe it or not, just about every bit of anything in this chapter will be important later.


	4. Chapter 3

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 3

123456

If You Think I'll Give It Up, You'd Better Think Again.

123456

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----

----

"Donner!" Director Wheeler burst into the other man's office. "Donner! What the hell have you done?!"

Donner looked at the other man with an annoyed expression. "Sit down, Director. Here, have some coffee."

"You sent my prototype out, didn't you?!"

"So what if I did?" Donner asked dangerously with an unreadable look on his face. He shuffled through some papers on his desk and finally handed a few sheets to the scientist. "Look at this."

Wheeler, always interested in any new bit of information, took the papers and scanned through them. "What is this?"

"The results of the test. The prototype was destroyed before testing was complete, but…"

"Destroyed?" Wheeler asked, his curiosity already getting the better of him.

"Freak accident, I understand," Donner replied, shrugging the question off as the other man looked more intently at the graphs and numbers on the sheet he was holding. "Nothing to do with build quality. Anyway, we weren't able to recover the prototype. When can you have another built?"

"There are three others in various states of readiness," the director answered distantly. "I see, the loss of the main balance system due to the destruction of the head caused the gyros to overcompensate…I see…," he mumbled to himself.

Donner sent the distracted man away and called in the next appointment.

----

Director Wheeler had spent the day redesigning the placement of various systems on the prototypes, and now sat down at his computer after the others had all gone. He opened up the program editor and got to work.

"Pretty soon, Rally. You won't have to wait anymore. You'll be in a new body and things can go back to the way they were…" he muttered to himself. He had spent hours after work every day for the past four years working on this. The program was incredibly complex, a marvel written with the highest high end programming engines. Some would call this sort of devotion more than a little creepy, but he didn't care. If he could bring Rally back, he would do anything.

Anything at all.

----

A couple weeks later, Max strolled through the front door of his apartment building, heading for the school. He glanced at his watch and yawned deeply; he hadn't been sleeping well lately now that the nights had started to get cold; he had to watch himself closely now to make sure he didn't start any fires in his sleep. "What a pain…" he said under his breath. Still, things could be worse. Being a teacher at Mahora wasn't _that_ bad other than the whole waking-up-before-sunrise thing. Well, being forced to stay way too late in order to follow some weird Japanese sense of responsibility to your job aggravated him to no end, but there were ways around that too, if one were imaginative; he had become well known among the other teachers for his two hour 'visits to the post office' and patrols of the school grounds. He took a look up and down the road, and then set off in a comfortable jog toward the school.

He nodded to the regulars as he passed, gave a wave to Asuna as she went past on her daily paper route, and finally came in sight of the main road leading to the campus, though it was still several intersections away. It had been quite some time since the robot had attacked Ayaka, and things had settled down. The girl had been sneaking around quite a bit lately, however, so a lot of people were on guard because of it. As the daughter of one of the major financial backers of the school, she was a special case, and Max didn't think her parents would look kindly on their daughter getting hurt by going somewhere she shouldn't go. He had been forced to drag her out of the damaged gym building two days ago, in fact. And—

He stopped dead in his tracks as he glanced into a side road. There in the street stood two Tanaka-san robots, of the same model as the previous one. He approached warily, glad to see that no one else was out on this side street. If they proved a danger he could dispatch them fairly easily.

One of them turned around and started plodding slowly toward him. Well, that could be seen as aggressive behavior. He readied his flame.

"I see. So these two are a threat, are they?"

Max glanced to the side and saw Takahata walking out of another side street. "Yeah, they look like a threat," the fire user said.

"I'll take the right," Takahata said with a sigh.

"Got the left," Max replied.

----

"Stay away from me!" Ayaka shouted at the approaching robot. She had spotted it trudging toward her earlier, and had run off into a small side street to get away from it but had quickly become lost in this unfamiliar part of Mahora. She had run quite far, had taken many turns, but still the robot came steadily after her. She looked around for something with which to defend herself but there was nothing, not a stick or a loose pipe or anything, and she was trapped in a dead end.

She was backed into a corner, and the robot kept approaching. Twenty feet away, fifteen, ten, five. It reached down at her with massive hands and lifted her up as easily as a child, tucking her under one arm like a sack of wheat. There was a metallic smacking sound as it straightened, followed by something that sounded like someone had thrown a handful of marbles into a cookie tin.

"Wait, what are you doing?! Put me down!" the girl demanded as she squirmed, but the robot didn't react. It just stood in place, seeming to stare blankly at the wall Ayaka had been trapped against.

After a few minutes passed, she began squirming around in earnest, and found to her surprise that the robot didn't react. She pounded her fist ineffectually against the robot's arm, kicked it several times in the side, and finally tried to pry its arm up so she could get loose. Nothing worked, she didn't have enough leverage in her current position to force any sort of movement on the part of the robot, and nothing elicited any sort of response from the thing at all. After ten minutes she grew tired and stopped her efforts. 'Well, this is a fine mess,' she thought.

After a moment, Max-sensei and Takahata-sensei walked around the corner and approached.

"Hold on, Iincho, we'll get you loose."

"Don't move, Ayaka-kun. This will only take a moment."

She waited while they tried various ways to get the robot to let go, eventually settling on a loose bar from a worn section of iron fencing in front of a nearby building. With a lot of prying and a bit of pulling, they loosened the robot's grip enough to let Ayaka slip out. More than a little ruffled, she bowed politely and thanked them.

"I'll walk you back to school, Iincho," Max offered. "I'll see you in a little while, Takahata. I'll let them know you'll be late."

"Thank you."

----

"So, what happened back there?" Max asked Ayaka as they made their way to the school.

"I'm not sure…the robot picked me up and then stopped moving," Ayaka replied, not used to speaking with the PE teacher.

"Are you ok? No bruises or broken bones? Nothing like that?"

"No," she said. They walked on in silence.

"Any idea why it was after you?" the teacher asked after a moment.

Ayaka looked at the ground. "I am the daughter of the head of the Yukihiro Group," she said, as if that explained everything. It wouldn't be the first time she had been targeted; she had had to deal with things like this her whole life.

"Yukihiro Group? Never heard of it."

She looked at the American, face full of surprise. "You've never heard of the Yukihiro Group? Major financial backer of the entire school here? We have controlling interests in companies of all sorts, from computers to engineering to farming and logging operations and everything in between all around the world!"

"Controlling interests? You mean you swoop in on struggling companies, buy all their stock, and take over? Isn't that a bit cut throat?"

Ayaka straightened up imperiously and put on her best 'Class Rep' face. "That is the world of business, Max-sensei," she said haughtily.

Max shrugged it off and continued walking. "Don't you guys do any work of your own?"

Ayaka stiffened. "Of course we do. We have our own research facilities and production companies all over Japan and in America and Britain as well."

"What sorts?"

"Oh, there's the car company, the engineering departments, several factories that make computer parts, the robotics division, the videogame company, the studio and television company, even though they mostly make anime," she said the last part in a low, embarrassed tone.

"Lots of tech, there."

"Well, yes," Ayaka replied. "It is the future, and we are making our place in it."

"Kinda makes me want to ask for an application, you know?" Max stated after a moment as they rounded the last turn and saw the school grounds arrayed before them. "Or that would probably be a resume instead," Max said for lack of anything better to say.

"Y…yes."

"Well, we're here, Iincho. You're a bit late, but you're here. I've got to let 'em know Takahata will be late as well. See you in class, Iincho."

"Goodbye, Max-sensei. Thank you for helping me," she said, bowing formally again.

"Y-you're welcome." He watched her set off toward her classroom as he approached the administration building. He would never get used to all this formality…

----

Takahata inspected the small hole in the back of the robot. When Mana had called in another robot attack, he had expected to find one of the university robots that had somehow gone berserk, not three more of these. Luckily, he and Max-san had quickly subdued the two they had found, and Mana had stopped this one with a long shot from her sniper rifle. Apparently the bullet had penetrated the armor in the back and then bounced around inside, destroying important systems. He would need to get all three to Hakase as soon as possible; it looked like they would be a danger to the students, after all.

----

"Donner, I want answers."

"Director," Donner spat with excessive force, "Back off."

Director Wheeler stepped back, unused to such vehemence from the man before him.

"Here, this folder has the results from the latest test. There is also a pen drive with the video feed they sent back before they were destroyed. Get on it," Donner ordered, throwing a sealed envelope at the other man, who barely managed to catch it.

"D-Donner—"

"Shut up, and get back to work. Or we could find someone else to take over, would you like that?"

"No! You can't do that!"

"We can, and we will if you continue failing to deliver. Now get back to work."

"Yes sir," Wheeler said as he clutched the envelope, completely overwhelmed.

----

When he arrived back in his office, Wheeler opened the envelope and scanned through the reports. Heavier armor was apparently needed. Other than that, they had performed admirably in his opinion. A bit slow due to the weight, but until they could find a stronger power source…

He took out the pen drive and plugged it into his computer. He scanned through the first video in high speed up until it abruptly blacked out, then played back the last twenty seconds. He was surprised to see a gray haired man with glass and a cigarette standing in front of the robot with his hands in his pockets; he played it back several times, not understanding what had happened. One moment the man was standing there and the next, the video was over. He switched to the next one. In this one, he could at least tell what was going on. A very tall man with black hair and pale skin came running at the robot and punched it. 'That is a good way to get a broken hand,' Wheeler thought to himself.

Wait a second, what was that?

"That's…"

He played it back several times, even going frame by frame. It was impossible! "His hand is on fire…" the director said to himself, the disbelief evident on his face. It was only for an instant, but… He shuffled through the papers that made up the report until he found the one he was looking for. Apparently this unit had shut down due to overheating. Maybe it had exploded, and that was where the fire had come from…?

He looked at the time stamp on the video and matched it with the first video. Yes, there was no doubt the two robots were side by side. But his idea was obviously wrong. The robot from the first video had lurched to the side at the instant the pale man attacked the one standing beside it. The gray haired man had then glanced over with an amused look. And…yes, there was the pale man, standing at the very edge of the video, so that only his right arm was visible. No signs of burn damage or even broken skin on his hand. The gray man seemed to twitch just before the video cut off, so he played it back frame by frame like the other one, but he couldn't tell what had happened. The gray man's arm had twitched and in an instant, the video was over. It was too fast. Maybe he had a gun? But if so, who was he, and how did he have legal access to a gun in Japan? No matter. That was the domain of the police.

He started the third video, and almost choked when he saw a familiar face. "Ayaka-chan…?"


	5. Chapter 4

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 4

123456

If You Do Not Want To See Me Again

123456

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_The night before…_

Misa was up on stage, playing with her friends in their band, Dekopin Rocket. They were playing great tonight, better than ever before. She looked out over the crowd as she sang…there were thousands, all cheering and screaming for her, for her band. She closed her eyes and finished the song, waiting for the crowd's approval.

Only empty silence met her ears.

She opened her eyes. The crowd was there, but they were still. No cheering, no reaction at all.

Then a man in the front line booed. The sound was taken up by others, and soon the cheering from before was replaced by a wave of insults and flying pieces of garbage.

Shouts of "Get off the stage" and "You suck!" flooded the stadium as more trash was thrown at them. A rock bounced off of Ako's head and she fell, blood spraying.

"Stop it!" Misa screamed, but her voice was drowned out. People were throwing all sorts of things now. Misa narrowly dodged a chunk of concrete as big as her head, and saw the crowd pulling on one of the enormous structures that held the lights. A shoe hit her in the head and she fell to the stage; her guitar strap broke and the guitar went skittering away, where it bounced off an amp and fell off the side of the stage. She looked up just in time to see the beam holding the spotlights falling, falling. Straight for her. She whipped her arms up to protect herself and…

Woke up with a scream. She looked around wildly, hands still covering her head. She wasn't in the stadium, she was in her bed in her dorm room. Then Sakurako was there, patting her back and calming her down and tears were pouring out and she couldn't stop crying.

"It was only a dream, Misa. Don't worry, it's not real, it was only a dream…"

Misa did her best to calm down, but she couldn't stop her heart from racing. It had been so _real_.

Madoka still lay sleeping in her bunk.

----

"Hello Negi, Chachamaru."

"Hello, Max-san," Negi said while Chachamaru bowed politely.

"How is Iincho today?" Max asked.

Negi looked thoughtful for a moment. "She seemed preoccupied today, and she was late for homeroom. Why do you ask?"

"She was attacked by another robot this morning. Don't worry," he hastily added when he saw the look on Negi's face. "Me and Takahata took care of it." He glanced around for a moment, then knelt down to Negi's level. "I think she's _this close _to finding out about magic," Max whispered conspiratorially, holding two fingers an inch apart for emphasis.

"I don't want to drag Iincho-san into our dangerous world," Negi said regretfully.

"Don't worry about it, Negi. None of us want our students to get involved in this." Max straightened up again. "But if they throw themselves into it in spite of our best efforts, it's our responsibility to make sure they know enough to survive." He grinned after a moment. "Huh, look at me, sounding like a real teacher." He ruffled Negi's hair and grinned again when the child teacher pouted at the action. "You think too much. C'mon, let's go see what the robotics team's found out about our 'visitors'."

"We were on our way to Master's house," Negi said.

Max seemed to deflate. "That Eva girl? I guess you could do worse for a magic teacher," he said after a moment. "You too, Chachamaru?"

"Yes, Max-sensei."

"Well, good luck, Negi. Give my regards to the vampire," he said, not really meaning it. It was dangerous to get involved with any vampire, much less one as powerful as Evangeline A.K. McDowell. Max was just glad he had yet to incur her wrath. Well, he had yet to incur any _more_ of her wrath, anyway. She made no secret of the fact that she would enjoy 'sparring' with him.

He continued on to the university.

----

"Hey, Hakase. Find out anything about these guys?" Max asked as he entered the room where the three robots were being disassembled.

"Nothing new, Max-sensei. They are basically upgraded versions of the first one, with improved system layout. Nothing so foolish as major balance systems located in the head or a power source based in the arm. They have primitive armor based almost entirely on thick outer plates, increasing the weight to a ridiculous degree, thus rendering them slow…" Hakase trailed off; this was all familiar territory.

"Any idea who built them?"

The girl frowned. "No, there are no company logos or identifying markings, not even a model number. Whoever created them was very careful, there aren't even any tags in the programming, no helpful programmer comments or anything," she said.

"Are there any places that are particularly vulnerable?" Max asked.

"Vulnerable?"

"In case someone normal wanted to destroy one," he explained.

"I see. Well, I suppose the entire torso is filled with important systems. In particular along the center line, also here and here." She paused. "Or you could damage one of the legs. None of the specimens is particularly well balanced, so a damaging attack to one of the legs should render it immobile."

"I see. Thanks Hakase, I'll let Touko know, and she'll tell the others," Max said as he approached the door.

"Ah! Max sensei, wait!"

"Hmm?"

"Next time, please try not to melt the robot, ok?"

Max smiled at the girl; it was ugly in spite of his intentions. "Ok, I'll keep it in mind, Hakase. Goodbye."

----

Misa had been following Madoka for some time, and the other girl was still unaware as far as she could tell.

The short haired cheerleader had been unusually quiet for a long time now, months even. And for once, it was something the girl wouldn't talk to her friends about. Sure, the three of them talked all the time, but it was shallow, meaningless talk, and the sense that Madoka was avoiding speaking about something weighed heavily over every conversation.

She followed Madoka all the way to the far side of the world tree, where the other girl sat down with her back against the tree and dropped her head into her hands while Misa crouched down behind a bunch of bushes.

When the other cheerleader moved, there was the unquestionable glint of tears on her cheeks.

'Madoka…?' Misa almost said, but kept quiet. She had the uncanny feeling that this was something she should stay away from, something that could change _everything_, and not necessarily for the better. But Madoka was her friend, one of her best friends. But still…she seemed to want nothing more than to run screaming to the hills. Something major was going on here. She had a feeling…

Life changing events of this caliber happen but rarely, and Misa wasn't so sure she was ready to risk whatever it was she had, especially after that dream she had had this morning. An angry little voice told her to get out there and comfort the other girl, and she felt her face turn red in shame. Madoka had been her friend for a long time, even longer than Sakurako. Was she willing to let her suffer this way?

She tensed herself to move forward or to run away, she didn't know which, not even as she rose to her feet.

Unfortunately, the choice was made for her as Asuna strolled up and spoke to Madoka.

To Misa, it felt as though something important broke when Madoka lunged up and clung to Asuna like a child to its parent. The red head stumbled back a few steps, but rubbed the other girl's back and patted her head like a mother as she mumbled soothing words.

It was as if some incredibly important connection had been rent, and a wall built in its place. Misa reached out, grasping for something she couldn't see and almost staggered under the weight of it as she stumbled backward.

And so, the decision made for her, she ran, not even noticing the hot tears flowing down her face as she went.

Somehow…somehow she knew things would never be the same after this. After everything the three of them had been through together…

Never.

----

"Director Wheeler, your services are no longer needed here. Get your things and get out of my building."

Wheeler just stared at the other man. He had been checking some calculations when he had been called to the meeting room. He had assumed that they were going to talk about budget cuts or something of the sort, but this…

"T-there must be some mistake…"

"There is no mistake," Donner said, cutting the other man off. "You have been found lacking, so you have been terminated."

"You can't do this! What about my projects?" the scientist asked, grasping at straws.

"We have located someone suitable for your replacement. _Our_ projects will be fine," Donner said, looking at the other man with disdain. "Now gather your things and go. Your replacement will be here in two hours. You have one."

Wheeler seemed shellshocked, so he continued.

"Oh, and by _our_ projects, I mean, other than the usual things, the robots and the programming. _All_ of the programming." He looked at the scientist meaningfully.

Wheeler took a hesitant step back. "But…but…!"

"You heard me."

Wheeler dropped to his hands and knees. "Please, don't take her from me, don't take Rally away from me!"

Donner just smirked condescendingly at him while Wheeler kowtowed, begging pitifully.

Donner's smirk became an outright smile, almost worthy of Kubrick. He kicked the man carelessly in the head. "Rally was designed on company time, on company equipment. Rally belongs to us. Now, _get the hell out of my building._" He didn't yell, he hardly raised his voice. But the effect was…indescribably disturbing. He exited the room, leaving ex-director Wheeler lying in the middle of the floor.

"…no…no! Rally! Oh God, Rally!"

----

On Sunday, Madoka moved out of the dorm room she had shared so long with Misa and Sakurako.


	6. Chapter 5

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 5

123456

How Many Roads

123456

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----

----

"Greetings, young Negi, and welcome to my domain."

Negi looked around, taking in the vast columns and black and white marble that covered every surface…the style seemed vaguely Greek or Roman. "Hello? Who said that? How do you know my name?"

A man dressed in white and gold stepped out from behind a pillar. Even though his hair was silver, he had a youthful face. "My name is Ryvern; I am given to understand that you have been trying to contact me for some time. My apologies…I have been long asleep."

Negi looked at the man curiously. He wore a long, curved silver and white sword on his hip as though it were a part of his body. He was quite sure he had never met this man before, and his name was unfamiliar.

"I have protected you from the dreams that plague your allies," Ryvern continued, apparently expecting some sort of response. When Negi remained quiet, he frowned. "I grow weary of this. If you wish to ask questions of me, you know how to contact me," he said irritably.

Abruptly Negi sat up with a start in Asuna's bed, looking around with confusion plain on his face.

----

"Listen girly, that other guy finally decided to wake up, and right now that goody two shoes is trying to turn the boy against me. We can't have that can we?" the man asked, looking at Asuna for an answer. When no reply was forthcoming, he sighed.

"Um…who are you again?" Asuna asked, yawning.

"Damn it girl…For the last time, my name is Malvrin. Ok? Malvrin. That's not too hard to remember is it?" the man asked. He was quite large, at least as tall as Max-sensei and much more heavily built, but not the least bit fat. He wore clothing made of stitched leather; not leather clothing in the modern sense, however, more like the Early Medieval European sense. He also wore a long black nodachi horizontally across his back on a sling like Setsuna sometimes did with Yuunagi. The oni horns on his head were unmistakable as well.

"You're an oni, right? Aren't you guys supposed to be red or blue or something?" Asuna asked sleepily, pointing out his perfectly human skin color.

"No. I am not an oni," he replied testily, as if they had been over this many times before. "An oni is a mythological creature in eastern superstition. I, however, am from what you people call the west. There. Question answered. Again." He put his hands on his hips and looked at her expectantly.

"…what?" Asuna asked.

"You really are clueless, aren't you?" the oni-man said.

Asuna glared.

"We're connected now, damn you. So you'd better shape up or I'll take over and kill everybody, got that?"

"Go away, I want some sleep," Asuna said, deciding to ignore the annoying oni-man, who stomped around and grumbled for a moment in frustration. Asuna turned away from him and climbed into the western-style bed that appeared suddenly beside her. "Turn the light off when you go," she mumbled sleepily.

Asuna suddenly found herself wide awake on the top bunk, with Negi clinging to her tightly. "Must've been a dream, I guess," she said aloud as she lay back down and pulled the blanket up.

----

Days passed, and Negi's group continued their training, now commonly joined by Max, Jennifer, Akira, Yuuna, and Madoka.

"So," Kazumi said one day during a short break in training. The only ones taking a break were her, Kamo, Max, and Jennifer; everyone else was still training here in the forest or in Eva's resort. "Max-sensei, have you and Jennifer-san made a pactio?"

Kamo's ears perked up as he listened. Was there an opportunity to make a quick 50k here?

Max glanced at the woman beside him and smirked, then fished around in his pocket for a moment. "Does this answer your question?" he said, flicking a card at Kazumi, who plucked it from the air.

Kamo sighed in defeat…he had been too late.

She looked it over for a moment. "It looks a bit different from the others," she said after a moment. The picture was of Max-sensei in a mid length brown coat, jeans, and work boots with his back to the viewer, smirking over his shoulder while he held two oddly-curved swords...the overall effect made him look like a total thug. Kazumi grinned at that thought and turned her attention back to the swords. She supposed they might be some sort of machete, possibly. Unfortunately, she still didn't understand the significance of the numbers and bits of latin text on the cards, so she couldn't comment on that, much less read it.

"So Jennifer-san is the mage?"

"Honestly, both of us are mages, but she's the lead mage between the two of us. She may not look like it, but she's pretty strong," Max said, earning a smack on the arm for his troubles. "Violent too." Another smack.

'He is a different person when she's around,' Kazumi thought to herself. She had never seen him so…playful? Yes, that was the word.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Kazumi-san, he's an idiot," Jennifer said conspiratorially when she had finished with her domestic violence.

"Yeah, yeah. Idiot. I understand how it is, Miss D in English," Max replied. Jennifer stuck her tongue out.

Kazumi, not knowing how to respond to the odd behavior from the two before her, looked back down at the card and took a picture with the small digital camera she always carried.

"I suppose we could probably add Akira in, if she wanted. But she's so strong she doesn't really need it," Max said after a moment.

Jennifer laughed. "That's true. Akira-chan's so strong, I'm tempted to ask for a pactio myself," she said and smiled at the girl in question, who was practicing her basic magic on the other side of the clearing. Oddly enough, Akira could incant spells in plain Japanese…Eva theorized that it had something to do with being able to use magic naturally, rather than being trained into it the way most mages were. It was very uncommon, but not unheard of.

"Eh…?" Kazumi's open mouthed look of surprise caught the two Americans off guard.

"What is it?"

"You would kiss Akira-chan?"

"…what?"

"For the pactio," Kazumi explained hesitantly. Was she missing something?

Max and Jennifer looked at each other and Jennifer laughed.

"There are other ways to make a pactio than through a kiss," Max said as he noticed a certain ermine slowly edging away from the scene.

"There are?"

"Well, most of them involve formal ceremonies, but yes," Jennifer said, then took a dainty bite of her sandwich.

"Kissing's probably the quickest," Max said thoughtfully. "But yes, there are other ways. Any sort of…ah…" he glanced at Jennifer. "Swapping of bodily fluid will work as long as the pactio circle is present. Other than that, there are about half a dozen different ceremonies I know of that you can use, though they're almost like marriage ceremonies when you think about it." He sat back and took a sip of coke. "That's what's generally used for two people of the same sex, though I suppose kissing would be easier. You can do the whole 'blood brothers' thing and swap blood too, but that's a bit unsanitary."

"I see…" Kazumi said, scrunching up her nose in thought. It seemed as though this whole pactio business was much more complicated than she had originally thought. She passed the card back to Max. "Can I see it?" she asked.

Max nodded and stood up. "Adeat." And suddenly he was wearing the clothing from the card in place of what he had worn before. He offered one of the swords hilt-first to Kazumi, who accepted it carefully. She had never been a weapon person, and was wary of cutting herself accidentally.

"It's light," she said in surprise. "lighter than it looks, anyway," she added after a moment.

"It's called a Falcata. The way the handle is made distinguishes it from other types with a similar blade shape," Max explained. "These are a bit different from the real thing, though. They're longer and wider for one thing, and the balance is quite a bit different."

"I see," Kazumi said. She quickly passed the blade back and wiped her hands off on the grass. She didn't like handling that sword.

"Abeat," Max said with a wry smile. He had seen the look Kazumi gave the two weapons, and knew quite well that it was a look they well deserved. His missions with the American Division hadn't always been peaceful after all, and those two swords were wickedly sharp.

"Here comes Akira, time to get back to practice," Max said as the group got back to their feet.

----

Roy Wheeler was a fugitive.

He had desperately downloaded a copy of Rally and then done what he could to delete it permanently from the company's servers; he had then formatted his own personal workstation before he left the lab for the last time, but he had been discovered and that bastard Donner had ordered security to arrest him. He had somehow managed to slip away, bluffing the guards with a modified laser his team had been developing for the robot project. The guards had assumed it was dangerous, but Wheeler was well aware that the laser would have had trouble heating anything bigger than a piece of toast. But nevertheless, he had made it to the parking lot and escaped in his car.

So here he was almost a week later, parked in a deserted camping area with his account frozen and barely a thousand yen left in his pocket. His car was almost out of gas, and there was nowhere to go. He couldn't go home, the apartment complex would be watched…not that there was anything for him there anyway. Not since Rally. He carefully unwrapped the candy bar that was his lunch as he considered his options.

He had been here since sunset the day before. He had had to sleep the night in the car and had gone out into the bushes to relieve himself when he awoke. It was uncomfortable, but he had spent many nights curled up on an office chair or slumped over on a desk, so it wasn't as if he couldn't cope with it. At least there were some vending machines nearby.

He had no family here, no friends that he could trust. The head of the Yukihiro Group was an old friend, but the company had probably already been notified of his 'crimes', and would promptly have him arrested if he showed himself. He would have left the country if he had had the funds, but he didn't have enough left to do anything but buy a cheap dinner. His thoughts returned to Ayaka-chan; for some reason, she had been targeted by one of the robots in the latest test. He had always thought of her as another daughter, giving her presents when he visited her father on business from time to time. It was odd…even after not seeing her for three years, he easily recognized her.

Maybe she could help somehow…? He pulled out his roadmap and searched for Mahora, wishing again that he had thought to grab his cell phone before his escape.

He was so intent on his search that he didn't even notice the robot approaching until his window shattered under the weight of its fist.

----

Chisame grumbled to herself again. She had been feeling quite paranoid lately, what with having that Kugimiya girl forced on her. She hadn't slept well either. The cheerleader had been very quiet for a change, but that didn't help much when one considered that she had been reassigned to Chisame's room, when Chisame was someone who loved her privacy.

Then there was the whole Chiu issue. She still wasn't comfortable doing that with another person around, much less an ex-gossip like Kugimya. But she had no choice, her fans wanted more, and she was bound and determined to deliver.

She knew Kugimiya had her own issues, but still…couldn't they have put her somewhere else?

Chisame glanced up from her computer screen to where the other girl lay curled up on the bed, covered by the blanket so that only the very top of her head was visible. She cried sometimes at night, muffling her sobs with her pillow until she woke up and stopped. Apparently Kugimiya was taking this whole 'Magic Is Real' thing pretty badly…

It never crossed Chisame's mind that the other girl was more concerned about dreams of the man she had almost killed with her bare hands months ago than the existence of magic. When she thought about the incident at all, Chisame figured that it been necessary, so it wasn't an issue.

The other girl was a hard worker, even Chisame would admit that. But still…she wasn't a child anymore. There was nothing to cry over, here.

That long haired cheerleader, Kakizaki, had come by once during the day when Kugimiya was out and asked about her. Apparently, Kugimiya had been avoiding both of the other cheerleaders, and they were worried. While Chisame had told them Kugimiya was fine, she hadn't mentioned the crying or blank staring the other girl would often do when she deigned to come to the dorm room. Kugimiya spent very little time in the room other than to sleep, and there was no need to make the cheerleaders worry needlessly. It wasn't as if Chisame were _cruel_, after all. Just annoyed. Vastly, greatly, annoyed.

Kugimiya made a weird sucking noise, and Chisame knew the other girl was about to get started again, so she put on her earbuds and turned on her mp3 player. It would be another long night.

----

A vague feeling of doom flowed throughout the dorm. Things seemed bad, friendships were dying, and people who had previously been on the same road were now forced to walk separate paths.

----

Ayaka frowned in concentration as she sat in bed, considering what she knew. That violent monkey Asuna-san was hiding something from her that involved Negi-sensei and several of their classmates. It wasn't so much the fact that they were hiding things from her as the errant sense that they thought she couldn't take it, that she couldn't handle the truth of whatever it was. Well, Ayaka was no shrinking violet or fragile glass rose. She could take it, she could take anything. Well, almost anything, she amended, thinking of Negi-sensei. She resolved to face Asuna-san the next day after class and _make_ her explain things. The girl had no right to keep things from her. She was her eternal rival, after all.

"Iincho…?" Natsumi asked sleepily from her bunk. "Why are you up so late?"

"It's nothing," the blonde said as she lay down and pulled her blanket up. "Go back to sleep."

----

Misa and Sakurako looked at each other as a deep feeling of loss drifted heavily through the room. Madoka's absence was a black hole, sucking up all light and energy to make them focus on her empty bed and the drawers where she had previously kept her things. Madoka had left almost a week ago, but they were still feeling her loss. They had always been three, ever since the beginning. Each one of them secretly hoped they always would be three, even after school or college. But that hope…

"She'll be ok," Misa said after a moment to break the silence and immediately regretted it.

Sakurako just gave her a sad look from where she was sprawled lifelessly across her bed.

----

Long after Chisame logged off and went to sleep, Madoka lay half awake. She knew Misa and Sakurako had been hurt when she left the dorm room so abruptly, but she couldn't help it, she had to get away from them. She saw the look Misa gave her from time to time, remembered well the look of horror on her friend's face when she had beaten that man with a baseball bat, or when she had almost killed the other one with her fists. She had discreetly asked Max-sensei once about that one, but the PE teacher had just shook his head and told her the man was still in a coma.

And somehow, the looks Sakurako shot her once in a while were far worse. Those glances just screamed 'I know what you did, Madoka, but it's ok.' She knew the other girl was trying to comfort her in her own, odd way, but…Madoka didn't think she could stand the pity she thought she saw in the other girl's gaze any longer. It dug at her mind like some kind of weird…mole. Or something. 'I need to get some sleep,' she thought in a daze as she realized how weird that previous thought had been. That was immediately followed by a mental image of one of those moles with the nose-feelers and Sakurako's hairstyle. 'I definitely need some sleep.'

She didn't want those two involved in this dangerous place she was now a part of, either. Misa was just a normal girl, after all. And Sakurako was too pure-hearted to be exposed to something like that.

Madoka turned over on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. She had little appetite and hadn't gotten much sleep lately, and it was starting to show. Her grades were slipping dangerously, for one thing, and she often found herself staring out the window at nothing during class, not even thinking. Once, while picking at her lunch alone, she had actually passed out. No one had found her, and she woke up after a moment by herself, but the fact that such a thing had actually happened had been quite terrifying…she had never done that before. Her life was rapidly coming apart, and she had no idea what to do about it.

She shuddered and turned over again.

----

----

----

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Author's Note: *sigh* Downer ending, emo crying, and misunderstandings all around. What else could you ask for? Also, Madoka went all depressed on us. Who knew almost killing a man could cause someone to have a breakdown like that? Chisame's clueless, and Iincho's feelings are hurt. Incidentally, Wheeler's car is an R34-style Skyline GTR, which he bought for the interior space. *headdesk*


	7. Chapter 6

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 6

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No, I Won't Back Down

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Donner hesitantly picked up the telephone in his office and dialed a number. After a moment someone answered.

'Gaze here.'

Donner gulped and almost choked.

'Hello?' Gaze asked when Donner didn't reply.

"I-it's me, Master Gaze. Donner."

'What is it?' Master Gaze did not sound happy to be disturbed. He had been the one to pass the order about the robots down to Donner, and hadn't been happy to learn about the recent problems. Apparently, he had some big shot lined up to buy several thousand of the robots.

"We…haven't caught him yet." Donner took a moment to calm himself down. "We found where he was hiding, but he managed to escape on foot."

Gaze cleared his throat on the other end. 'It doesn't matter as long as you get that program back, correct?'

Donner licked his dry lips before answering in the affirmative.

'Have your people attempted to recover the program from his computer?' Donner didn't answer. '_Donner_,' he said sharply.

"No! We can't. The computer was formatted as per company policy." He neglected to mention that the one who had done the formatting was Wheeler, or how no one had even realized anything was wrong until they returned later in the day and found that Wheeler's nasty little program had made the computer format the hard drive, then filled it with meaningless ones and zeros and followed that up with another format; they had only managed to stop it on the fourth cycle. They later found the Rally program missing from the backup servers as well, something that had evidently been performed with a similar, though less destructive, method; the servers themselves were still intact. It was simple, but quite effective.

'Then capture him; the higher ups on the other side want that program immediately. Is there anything else?' Gaze asked, his irritation coming through clearly in his voice.

"No, Master Gaze."

'Good. Then I trust you will recover the program in a timely manner. Goodbye.'

There was a click as Gaze hung up. Donner, shivering now, fumbled the wireless phone and dropped it to the floor before he placed it back in its docking station. He wished not for the first time that Gaze hadn't demanded regular updates of information. Without the Rally program, the robots, along with his whole project here, would be virtually useless, and Donner would become expendable, not to mention drawing the ire of the mysterious 'higher ups'. As for the Rally program, they had other much simpler AI programs, but none would be anywhere near Rally's level of sophistication. His entire project would be… He wished again that he had never gotten involved with these people.

He made another call to his second in command and gave the order to begin mass production. If he couldn't produce a robot with high quality AI, he could at least have numbers on his side. But still…he needed the Rally program. Besides, the robots could always be reprogrammed later, when the Rally program was in his hands again.

----

Ayaka, her resolve firm, vowed to face Asuna after school. She had had another bad dream and lain awake for a few hours the night before, so she wasn't at her best…but she wouldn't let that stop her. She would have to corner the other girl alone somehow and keep her from escaping. The bathroom, maybe? She could block the entrance and corner the red head in one of the stalls where there was no room to maneuver. Yes, that was probably—

"Yukihiro-san? Do you hear me?"

She snapped her attention back to the classroom. "Ah yes! Sorry, sensei."

"Ok, don't let it happen again. Now, can someone explain this equation…"

----

Eventually, the last class of the day ended and Ayaka approached Asuna, who was chatting with Sakurazaki-san and Konoka-san in the classroom. "Asuna-san, I have something I need to speak about with you privately."

"Iincho…? Ok. I'll be a little late today, sorry Konoka. Tell the others, ok?" Konoka answered in the affirmative, and Ayaka led the redhead out into the hallway. "Ok, what is it, Iincho?"

"Not here, there are too many people," Ayaka said as she grabbed Asuna's upper arm and debated internally on where to take her so they could speak privately. Honestly, the bathroom was the only place nearby...there were too many students still in the classrooms. "Ok, let's go," she said after a moment as she pulled Asuna to a nearby bathroom.

"You want me to go to the bathroom with you…?" Asuna asked with an odd tone as Ayaka pulled her through the doorway.

"What…? Here, go in here," Ayaka said as she dragged the girl across the small room, finally pushing Asuna into one of the stalls and following after. She closed the door and locked it.

"What?! Iincho, what are you—" Asuna asked as she started to become _very_ nervous, her sword case clacking against the walls in the narrow bathroom stall as she tried to squeeze around the other girl.

"It's time for the truth, Asuna-san!"

"Iincho!? I'm not, I mean, I don't like g—"

"What are you hiding from me?" Ayaka demanded.

Asuna looked at her blankly. "What?"

"You and Negi-sensei are hiding something important from me! What is it? Tell me!"

Asuna's relief was palpable. "Oh thank God, I thought you were…nevermind," she said as she slumped against a wall.

"So? Tell me!"

Asuna glanced at the girl that had been her friend/rival for pretty much her entire school life and looked away quickly, then steeled herself and looked her in the eye. "I-it's nothing, Iincho," she finally said, her eyes twitching slightly at the end.

"You lied…" Ayaka finally said. The hurt in her voice was genuine. "Why are you lying to me?"

Asuna's eyes were downcast. "I can't tell you."

The class rep looked at her disapprovingly.

"It's true!"

Ayaka sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I will tell Takahata-sensei about…_it_." Asuna's gasp echoed in the small bathroom. Ayaka hadn't wanted to go that far, but there was no choice at this point. She had had enough of these feelings of paranoia. She was tired of doubting everyone's words, she wanted answers she could trust. And this seemed to be the only way to get them.

"You wouldn't!"

Ayaka's look was serious. "You are leaving me no choice, Asuna-san."

Asuna looked ready to bolt for a moment, but with no room to move, she couldn't get past Iincho without hurting the other girl. Finally, with no choice left, she relented. "Fine. But we have to go out to Eva-san's resort." At Ayaka's questioning look, she paused. "I'll explain later. Let's get out of here before somebody else comes in," she said.

They opened the stall door and stepped out together just in time for Ako, who had just entered the bathroom, to see them together.

"Ah…ah…I'm sorry!" she squeaked as she ran from the bathroom.

"Ah…?"

"Oh crap!"

----

The two exited the school and headed out past the still-closed-off athletic field, and were just about to enter the woods when an injured man stumbled out and clung to Ayaka.

Naturally, Ayaka shrieked.

"..yaka-chan…" he muttered as he leaned on her, forcing her back several steps before he tripped and fell, smearing blood on her clothes and almost accidentally pulling down her skirt.

"Iincho! Get back!" Asuna shouted, shoving a hand into her pocket as she pushed the class rep back with the other.

Ayaka stumbled back out of the way as the bloody man kept going, crawling pitifully with an injured arm toward the school. "…un…run…" he said, his voice coarse.

Ayaka set herself to rights and finally spoke. "…Wheeler-san? Is that you?"

"Run," he said as Ayaka helped him to his feet.

"Iincho, do you know him?"

"He is one of my father's business associates," she said hesitantly. "Wheeler-san, what happened? Were you in a wreck…?"

"Robot…" he managed to say before he started coughing and fell back to his knees. Asuna was instantly on edge, her hand fishing around for something in her other pocket as she turned to face the trees the man had come out of.

"Don't speak, Wheeler-san, I'm calling a doctor," Ayaka said as she pulled out a cell phone and began dialing. There was a distant, distinctive sound of a fallen tree snapping, and Asuna starting digging around in her bag. Ayaka couldn't get an answer on her phone, the line was busy. She flipped the phone shut just as a nearby tree fell over, revealing what had been chasing Wheeler.

Asuna muttered angrily and yanked the sword case from her shoulder, taking out the sheathed katana held inside. She took hold of the hilt and drew a sword with a blade as black as night. Asuna shook her head a bit as something foreign seemed to shoot through her mind, then charged at the robot. Ayaka could only watch in open-mouthed wonder as Asuna's sword sliced through it easily, neatly chopping off the head, left shoulder, and left arm in one large chunk, which slowly slid off to the side and hit the ground with a solid thump.

Asuna turned to look back at her. "Run, Iincho!" The robot took a wide, awkward swing with its right arm that sent Asuna flying. Ayaka screamed as the other girl bounced off a tree with a grunt; she took a hesitant step back and almost fell when Wheeler grabbed her ankle.

"…take it…" he wheezed, holding out a mini-laptop. She took it automatically, distractedly trying to avoid the blood that had dripped on it while simultaneously backing away from the robot and staring in shock at Asuna. "…run…away…" he gasped, and then the robot stepped on him and _slid, _and…things…came out of his mouth as he spasmed and rolled a bit like a rug on a rough floor and Ayaka shrieked again.

Then the robot came apart in three chunks and Asuna stood on the other side with her sword, breathing heavily and holding her side, but otherwise unhurt. She looked down at Wheeler and quickly looked away. "Ayak—Iincho? Are you alright?"

Hounded by terrible dreams and paranoia for weeks, Ayaka's legs finally failed her and she dropped to the ground as she tried to scramble away from the dead man, almost dropping the mini laptop when she realized she was still holding it. After a moment, Negi flew up on his staff. "Asuna-san! What—Iincho-san?!" He fell silent when he saw the dead man. The others quickly arrived at a run.

"Wheeler-san…he…" Ayaka felt her stomach roiling as she looked at what remained of her father's old friend. He had been more like a close uncle to her, and now he was dead. Wrapped up in those thoughts, she didn't even notice that Negi had been flying.

"Don't look, Iincho," Asuna said quietly as she knelt by the class rep, blocking her view of the corpse. "Negi, hand me the sheath, ok?" She replaced the sword in its sheath and offered a hand to Ayaka, who looked at her blankly for a moment. "Come on, Iincho, we can't stay here. There may be more of them."

Ayaka nodded dumbly and let them help her to her feet. It was then that she noticed the people around her. "Negi-sensei…? You…"

Negi tried to hide his staff behind his back. Asuna was starting to feel sick from being so close to the dead man, and from the faces of the others, most of them were as well. Kazumi was very pale, and Konoka was shaking her head and tearfully muttering something that sounded like "I can't do it, it's too late," over and over again. Setsuna was staring at the body with a kind of morbid fascination. Asuna had never seen a dead man so close before, not that she could remember; she could have reached out her arm and touched him from her current position. It brought back strange half-memories that she desperately didn't want to recall, so she turned away again.

"You flew…" Ayaka said suddenly, looking at the teacher.

Negi looked around for help, finally settling on Asuna, who seized at the opportunity to divert her attention from what had just happened.

"You might as well tell her. She saw everything, Negi," the girl said shakily as the group started moving away.

----

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Author's note: Well, I meant for this chapter to be humorous so the mood could be lightened a bit, but…yeah. Sorry about that. Also it's full of conversation, so it's not as long as it looks. In any case, it's about five pages too short as far as I'm concerned.


	8. Chapter 7

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 7

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All These Lines On My Face Getting Clearer

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Natsumi was up on stage, doing Hamlet in an actual professional production. She was playing the Prince of Denmark Himself and doing a great job of it, if she had anything to say about it. Only, the audience was getting restless. Just as she (quite magnificently) 'died' after 'killing' Claudius, someone in the audience stood up. A hush fell over the theater as the man, who Natsumi recognized as a leading theater critic in the area, walked up toward the stage and paused in the center of the aisle. A spotlight swept over to him and he adjusted his glasses slightly, squinted his eyes as he looked directly at her, and made a short 'hmph' of disgust. The man shook his head in disdain and walked down the center aisle all the way to the exit. The sound of the heavy door opening and closing was thunderous in the now-silent theater.

Someone else stood up, shook their head, and headed for the exit, followed by another and another.

"Wait! The play isn't over yet…!"

No one paid any attention, and soon the entire audience was on its feet, shuffling toward the exit. Natsumi looked to the other actors for help, but none of them would look at her.

"Hey, what are we gonna do?" she asked, but none of them even acknowledged her existence. "Kuzuki-sempai? Kuzuki-sempai, do you hear me?" No response.

"I guess we went out on a limb…we need someone to play the prince after all," he said to another actor.

"Listen to me!"

"Yeah, that was a mistake," the actor replied.

"Maybe we should have gotten that girl…what's her name?"

"Who are you talking about? I don't remember anyone like that."

"Yeah, she might as well not even exist," Kuzuki-sempai said carelessly. "Oh well, I have more important things to do."

"I…I might as well not even…It's true…I'm useless…I'm forgettable…No one will ever acknowledge me…"

Natsumi snapped upright in bed and realized she was sobbing hysterically. Almost immediately, Chizu-nee was beside her.

"Natsumi-chan? What's wrong?" But Natsumi couldn't even answer, she was crying too hard.

Kotarou came in, wiping the sleep from his eyes absently. "What's wrong? Natsumi-nee-san, why are you crying?"

"Oh Kotarou-kun," she wailed as she grabbed hold of his shirt. Ayaka came out of the bathroom with a haggard look on her face at this point.

"Hey! You're getting me all wet," he said, trying ineffectually to push the teenager away until he saw the look on Chizuru's face. He settled for putting a hesitant hand on her back instead.

"It will be all right, Natsumi-chan," Chizuru said. "Kotarou-kun, please stay with her, I'll make some tea. Come with me, Ayaka-san."

----

Gaze sat back in the chair in his office and stretched. He had been up most of the night, and only had time for a few hours of sleep before coming in to work this morning. Already he had drifted off twice, only to be awakened by his secretary. It had been quite fun, playing with the child's friends like that. But somehow, things weren't going as quickly as he'd hoped. He had hoped to drive at least a few of them to murderous levels of paranoia, but either the full affect was being blocked somehow, or the entire class was amazingly well balanced, mentally and emotionally. Somehow, he doubted the latter…they were a class of fourteen and fifteen year old girls, after all; they should be knifing each other right and left by now.

He riffled through the reports he had had his people gather on the students. Several mages, a ninja, a mercenary, and a lot of untrained potential. Somehow, he had a feeling the vampire wouldn't interfere.

Some of them had quite a bit of potential. Maybe after this was over, he could brainwash any survivors and keep them as his personal guard during his retirement? He pulled out a piece of paper and began a list as he thumbed through the reports again. Konoe Konoka, Akashi Yuuna, Kakizaki Misa, Sasaki Makie… Maybe he could build a harem instead. It wasn't as though they were illegal _everywhere_, after all.

Those happy thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. "Come in."

"Mister Gaze, a Mister Averruncus is here to see you," the secretary said as Fate walked through the doorway.

"Hello, Gaze," the boy said as his blank eyes scanned the room and finally settled on the big man on the other side of the desk.

"Welcome, Fate," Gaze replied as he motioned for the secretary to leave. "Would you like some tea?"

"No thank you, I prefer coffee," Fate replied as he pulled a chair up and sat down opposite Gaze. He looked the much older man over, noting his receding hairline and graying hair, down to the worry-wrinkles beginning to show on his face. "It seems as though you are not doing very well, Gaze."

The man sighed and shook his head. "My power is fading. I knew it would happen eventually, but…" He stood up and paced around the room in an aggravated manner. "I should still have enough time to do this," he said as he pulled out an old pocketknife and began to flick it rapidly open and shut in a steady rhythm. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. A steady two clicks a second. It was a nervous habit he had developed a long time ago. He still held his teacup, which seemed like a toy in his other hand. While Gaze was a very big man, he was not fat. His strength was quite surprising, and he used to say in the old days that he had never pushed anything that didn't move, and had never punched a man that hadn't hit the floor immediately after.

"See that you do," Fate said as he picked up the folder with the reports on the students inside. He flipped through them for a moment, finally stopping on Nodoka. He pulled the report out and showed it to the other man. "This one is incredibly dangerous, she is a mind reader." He pulled out Asuna's report. "She is a magic canceller."

"What?! But that can't be…" Gaze exclaimed, suddenly lost in thought.

"The royal family? It seems to be that way, but we don't know for sure. In any case, if you get a chance, try to capture her alive. Now," Fate said, pulling out another folder. "This one is Shinmeiryu, Tsukuyomi tells me she is quite good," he said, showing Setsuna's report to the older man. He shuffled through them for a moment more. "This one," he finally said, pulling out Chizuru's folder. "She is incredibly dangerous. The report from Wilhelm stated that she was able to physically strike him before he could react, and he is a high-class demon." Fate dropped the stack of reports back on the desk, placing those he had pulled out to the side.

"My thanks for the information, Fate."

"Now it is up to you to put it to use," the white haired boy replied. They remained in silence for a moment. "How are you planning to do this? The boy seems to be unimportant, but they demand his immediate death or imprisonment. And, as I am sure you know, they are not patient."

Gaze returned to his chair. "This," he said finally, pulling a small gold-colored object from a hidden pocket. He offered it to Fate, who took it curiously.

"A dreamgazer. Interesting. I thought they had all been lost or destroyed." He passed it back to the other man. "Where did you find it?"

Gaze took it back and put it away. "It was quite expensive, let me assure you," he said. "An old friend found it in the ruins of Ostia. He was the only member of his party to escape the ruins…as you know, that place is quite dangerous." Gaze didn't bother to mention that the 'friend' had seen to it personally that the rest of the group didn't leave the ruins, and that things had been arranged to ensure that after the delivery of the valuable artifact, no one would ever know that Gaze even possessed such a thing.

"I see. That should augment your other abilities quite well."

Gaze frowned, but remained silent.

Fate finally stopped hinting around. "How long do you have left?"

Gaze's frown deepened, and he looked away. "Maybe six months. Maybe a year. My power will be gone in two years at the most. After that…"

The boy nodded at the unspoken words. After that, Gaze would fade away.

"Very well, shapeshifter. Do what you can. I must go now…is there any message you wish to send?" While he normally wouldn't offer such a thing to anyone, Gaze had been an acquaintance for a long time, and he felt a vague sense of disappointment at the thought that the man wouldn't be around for much longer. But…such was the fate of all artificials.

Gaze looked over at the boy, wondering why he was being so generous. "Tell them my vow for vengeance will soon be fulfilled. Their defeat at the hands of the Thousand Master and his mercenaries will not go unavenged. After that…I will finally get some rest."

Fate studied the man across the desk. "Very well. Goodbye, Gaze," he said as a faint sense of disappointment flooded him. It seemed Gaze would remain a tool for others to use for the rest of his life.

"Goodbye, Fate."

The two stood and looked across the desk at each other for a moment. It seemed as if this would be the last time they saw each other…it was quite an unsettling feeling, in Fate's opinion. The boy turned and left the room in silence.

----

"Ako-san? Ako-san, please wake up," Negi said from his place at the front of the classroom.

"Ah…I'm sorry, Negi-sensei," she said, rubbing her eyes. She felt herself half fall out of her desk, but managed to grab hold of the desktop before she hit the floor.

"Ako-san!"

"Hey, Ako, are you ok?"

Negi quieted the class and took a look around. Most of them looked tired, and Sakurako-san was practically drooling as she slumped over her desk. Iincho was still stunned from the information overload of the past few days, and was staring blankly through a nearby window. With mounting worry, Negi took a good, long look at the class. Everyone was drooping or rubbing their eyes or yawning, and Natsumi-san, Chizuru-san, and Kazumi-san weren't even present. Well, Zazie-san looked normal. Of course, Zazie-san was Zazie-san. Negi felt fine. 'What is happening here?' he thought frantically. He returned his attention to Ako-san, who suddenly seemed very frail. Asuna-san was the only one that looked fully awake, so he called on her. "Asuna-san, please take Ako-san to the nurse's office."

The girl glanced sharply at Iincho before answering. "Alright, Negi-sensei."

Ako barely noticed Asuna put on her sword case and approach her desk, and hardly realized that any time had passed when she found herself outside the nurse's room. Asuna told her to sit down by the wall, and she realized with a start for the first time that there were others here. In fact, there was a line of people waiting to get in. What was going on here?

----

Negi, Asuna, Setsuna, and Konoka were the only ones at practice after school. One by one during the day, the others had all shrugged off the training, claiming exhaustion for the most part.

"I don't like this," Asuna said after a moment, causing the others to look at her. "Everyone's acting weird," she explained. The others looked at each other and nodded slowly.

Finally Setsuna broke the silence. "I…I had a dream," she began. Konoka turned sharply toward her as she continued. "K-k-Kono-chan, Konoka-ojou-sama, she…In the dream, she…it was like what happened during the class trip to Kyoto, only…Konoka-ojou-sama was…she was…" Setsuna stopped and looked at Negi, Asuna, and Konoka. She gulped and continued. "She was…was petrified. And Fate, that white haired boy, he hit her, and…" Setsuna's breath hitched and Konoka hugged her, prompting a shocked fit of spluttering on Setsuna's part. Asuna and Negi stared at the girl in shock; neither had ever seen her act like that before.

After a moment, Konoka started speaking, not letting go of the other girl. "In mine, we were all older. Probably about twenty, I think." She kept clinging to Setsuna, who was barely holding back tears. "We were all fighting a dragon, and Secchan…she was flying, and the dragon, the dragon…" She buried her face in Setsuna's neck and started sobbing as Asuna and Negi looked at each other.

"I haven't had any bad dreams, I don't even really remember having any dreams at all, lately. What about you?" Asuna asked. Negi shook his head, but his face was firm.

"Has anyone else had bad dreams?"

"Iincho said something about not being able to sleep lately," Asuna answered as she thought for a moment. "Asakura too."

Negi nodded. "I wonder if the rest of the students are the same…?"

Asuna thought back to the classroom earlier that day. "Probably. You saw everyone, right? It doesn't look like anyone has gotten much sleep." She looked at Negi with a serious expression. She didn't like her friends to suffer like this. "This isn't natural, we have to tell somebody."

Negi nodded seriously as he considered what he knew of such things. They would have to tell the magic teachers, for one thing. But the headmaster would have to know first.

---

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Author's Note: Aha, plot! Along with another short chapter.

Also, a dreamgazer is a small charm-like thing like the magic objects Nodoka uses to enhance her artifact's abilities in the magic world arc in the manga. If you can't guess its purpose by the name, well…


	9. Chapter 8

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 8

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Girls Rock Your Boys

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She was back in the valley with the trees and the lake again, playing around in the water and talking with the guardian spirit like she did in her dreams every night. It was so relaxing… until the spirit suddenly looked up at her with eyes widened in surprise, and the scene vanished.

And then Akira was standing in the world tree plaza, and Marshall, that sick, sick man, had her wrapped up with vines again.

"Hehehehe, she can die!" he said, and she saw again that scene that had haunted her in her dreams every night since it happened. She tried to scream as Yuuna was again impaled by thorns, but the vines were too tight and she couldn't breathe. And this time the madman kept the basketball girl wrapped up. Akira wept as her best friend died, and then Guy, the wind elemental, sauntered up, carrying one of Max-sensei's swords.

"Took care of him, boss. This one too," he added as he produced Jennifer's head. "For that matter, I got them all," the wind man said as he stepped aside to reveal a large sack that appeared to be full of lumpy, vaguely round objects. "Do you want to see?" he asked Akira. She shook her head frantically, but he opened the sack anyway and pushed it over so the contents fell out across the sidewalk in front of her and Akira opened her mouth to scream—

She woke up on her bed in the dorms, soaked in sweat and lying in a fetal position with the covers kicked off, biting her tongue to the bleeding point to keep that scream from getting out.

----

She was playing with Dekopin Rocket again, only this time the stadium was huge, filled to the top with spectators. A hundred thousand at least, and all of them cheering.

She knew she had seen this before, but it continued on anyway. She became more distressed as the dream wore on, until finally the crowd turned on them and started throwing things like every time before. Ako was knocked down, and a huge chunk of concrete as big as a small car was flying straight at her. She ducked down to avoid it, and…

Nothing happened.

"Don't worry, Misa-chan. Everything will be all right."

She looked up and recognized Max-sensei's wife, the brown haired American woman that came to the school from time to time. "What…?" The woman was standing with her arms up, and the things the audience threw were bouncing off of a translucent dome that encompassed the two. She grunted lightly and the dome expanded out toward the audience, sweeping them all away until there was nothing but the two of them, the stage, and the stadium. Then that too crumbled, and she was standing in an empty void with Max-sensei's wife.

"Are you ok?" the brunette asked, extending a hand to rest on Misa's forehead.

"Yes," Misa answered. Why was she dreaming about Max-sensei's wife?

"Go to sleep, don't worry about anything. The dreams won't be back tonight," she said soothingly. Misa nodded and lay down on the bed that appeared beside her. She was in her pajamas now, and felt like a six year old kid getting tucked in by her mommy. 'This is nice,' she thought as she drifted off.

Jennifer watched her go back to sleep, and then left the girl's dream to chase the one that had brought her such a twisted dream in the first place.

----

She was on the trapeze, flying through the air with the greatest of ease, until suddenly her partner wasn't there, and there was no one to grab her hands. And now she was falling, falling, falling, so she twisted in mid air and landed elegantly on her feet.

She looked directly at him, and the circus tent was gone without a trace, and they were standing in a void. The tattoos on her face stood out, and he could see them for what they were. They weren't tattoos any more than an orange was an apple. She just _looked_ at him, and he felt powerless under her odd gaze. Her light colored hair fluttered as a gust of wind that was bizarrely both boiling hot and freezing cold passed by, and the void was gone, replaced by an image of a volcanic hell.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked quietly.

A bolt of fear went through him, and he backed up until he bumped into something…a demon. He looked back at the girl and saw an army of demons behind her. Hundreds, thousands. Too many to count, far too many.

"Get out of my mind," she calmly stated.

----

Gaze hit the wall with his back hard enough to knock books from the shelves and was instantly back to himself. A quick look around indicated that he was back home in his estate, and he gave a strangled laugh as he climbed back to his feet. That had been dangerous, unbelievably dangerous.

It looked like he wouldn't get anything else done tonight; they were on guard this time. He should never have pushed his luck with so many, he should have stopped with that water girl. Well, no matter. He could always try again tomorrow night. No one could stay awake forever, after all.

----

It was too early for any real results from the dream-guarding operation, but Negi was nonetheless disappointed when his students looked pretty much the same as they had the day before. If anything, some of them were worse. Akira-san was staring at her hands as she continuously formed them into fists and back, and Sakurako-san seemed even more sluggish. If this had been some anime, the cheerleader would have dripped right off her desk into a puddle on the floor. At least Natsumi-san and Chizuru-san were present today.

But he was a teacher now so he couldn't let them sleep, no matter how much he wanted to. So, chanting a quick spell designed to refresh and invigorate the students, he got on with class, pretending not to notice the glares Eva-san kept sending him.

----

"Boy."

Negi froze in his tracks and turned around to face Eva-san and Chachamaru-san. "Y-yes Master?"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she asked, clearly expecting a good answer.

"The dreams? We have everyone who can use that sort of magic working on it. It's still too soon for reliable results, but—"

"Dreams? What dreams? Nevermind that. I'm talking about the darkness in the dorm. It's gotten so strong it's starting to leak out. If it weren't for Sakurako or Murakami, I think everyone would have died by now," she said disdainfully.

Negi's face was blank. "What…?"

"You…you really don't know?! You're a trained mage, right? How couldn't you know?!" Eva was truly, honestly shocked at Negi's ignorance.

"You're confusing me, Master! What are you talking about?" Negi pleaded.

Eva just looked at him. "You really don't…wow, you really are just a brat."

----

Later, at a meeting before their usual training session, Negi explained the situation to Asuna, Setsuna, and Konoka. "So apparently, whatever is causing these dreams has been doing so for months, the effects just haven't become noticeable until now. And the bad dreams everyone is having are resulting in an abnormally high concentration of, well, 'bad feelings' floating around in the dorm, I guess, which is making the situation even worse."

"Wow, that's…" Asuna trailed off as she looked up to see a newcomer approaching. "Akira-san? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" the girl snapped, shocking everyone. Few had ever heard Akira raise her voice, much less in anger. "I'm fine," she repeated more softly a moment later.

"Max-sensei isn't here today—" Everyone knew the girl didn't like training with anyone else.

"I called him," Akira interrupted. She started pacing around with her head down and her arms clenched tight under her breasts after that while Negi hesitantly continued with his explanation.

"While the dream manipulation is magic-based and thus doesn't seem to affect Asuna-san, the rest isn't, not really, and it won't be easy to fix. For now, we just have to do the best we can to stop the bad dreams and protect everyone from the contamination."

----

Soon enough, Max arrived along with Jennifer, who looked rather sleepy. Akira demanded a spar session, so Max shrugged his shoulders and drew his sword.

Within seconds, Max and Akira were in the middle of an intense spar, possibly the most intense they had ever had, and Akira was forcing Max back. Her water suddenly flared, and before he could stop it his fire returned the favor, and then Akira was upon him faster than he could react. He could barely move his blade in time to block or parry her attacks, and it took every trick he knew to keep her far enough away to give him room to maneuver away from the swift, fluid movements of her sword. She was using that old jian he had given her months ago, and seemed to have been practicing with it behind his back.

"Come on, Negi! Give me some help over here!" Max shouted as he tried to avoid another series of blows. "Gah!" One of her attacks hit home and sliced deep into his arm. His fire raged as strongly as it ever had, and he forced her away just in time for Negi to hurriedly cast some sort of binding spell on her.

Max backed up a few steps and fell to his knees, gasping for breath as Jennifer rushed over.

"nnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Akira shouted, her voice changing to a terrifyingly deep tone midway through the word as that terrifying blue glow appeared in her eyes again for the first time since the death of Marshall, months before. "HE'S MINE! YOU CAN'T TAKE HIM AWAY!" And she burst out of the binding spell by sheer brute strength; Jennifer was forced to scramble away to avoid getting run over as Akira leapt at Max…

"Akira, no!"

"Don't do it, Akira-san!"

"It's only a spar session!"

…and kissed him. And kissed him some more, flattening him down on the ground with brute strength and laying on top, forcing his arms out to the sides. Magic power began fluctuating through the clearing wildly and the wind whipped about. Suddenly a frightening tearing sound ripped through the clearing, and then Akira was up again, her long hair whipping around wildly as she approached Jennifer, wiping her mouth as the eerie blue glow in her eyes intensified.

"YOU'RE MINE TOO," she stated as she pounced on the American woman and kissed her thoroughly as well, while Asuna and Setsuna covered Negi's eyes and Konoka watched with rapt interest.

Another loud tearing sound blasted through the clearing along with the wind and debris, and then Akira was stumbling to her feet with the blue glow gone, looking around as though she didn't know what was happening. The wind died away almost instantly afterward, as the wide eyed group watched the water girl warily.

After a moment Eva arrived, surveying the scene before her. The two Americans lay sprawled out on the ground, while Negi's small group looked at Akira with suspicion and awe.

Other magic students and teachers quickly appeared, drawn by the wild fluctuations in magic and weather and asking questions no one knew the answers too, all while Akira looked around, dumbfounded. "W-what happened?" Akira asked.

Max was the first to move, raising his hand to his mouth with a distant expression on his face. He sat up and looked around. "…wow…"

Takahata knelt by his side. "Are you ok? We felt the fluctuations and came as fast as we could. What happened?"

Max looked around slowly, finally focusing on the graying man beside him. "…she kissed me…" Takahata raised an eyebrow.

Negi spotted something in the grass and picked it up. "Max-san…?"

"What happened!?" Akira asked again.

Jennifer was sitting up now too, with the same dazed look as Max. "Wow…" She spotted Akira, who was still confused, and blushed. "…wow…" It seemed to be the only thing she could say.

"So what happened here?" Eva said, finally getting Negi's attention.

"I think they made a pactio," Negi said, blushing faintly as he recalled the way Akira had kissed the other two. He held out a pactio card to Eva, who took it and looked it over.

"It's in Japanese," she said in surprise.

"That's not right," Touko said as she approached and examined the card. It didn't look anything like a proper pactio card. The words_ were_ all in Japanese, and it didn't include the sort of information one normally found on a pactio card. And the picture! "I have never seen anything like this," she said. The figure, she assumed it was Max, was quite disturbing. A man in odd, black and gray scaly armor stood facing forward, fiery, black feathered devil wings sprouting from his back and a dark helmet with a narrow T-shaped slit for vision, along with a huge, almost-but-not-quite German-style two-handed sword, with fire in the background to finish the effect.

Asuna spotted something stuck to a nearby bush and went to investigate, only to see Konoka doing the same a few feet away.

"Here's another one," someone else said nearby, holding another card high for everyone to see. That one was for Jennifer, and it matched the basic features of Max's new card in all regards, except the picture was of Jennifer, with white-feathered angel's wings sprouting from her back, some sort of armored blue and white dress, and a winged helmet and lance.

"A forced pactio," the headmaster's voice broke into the conversation as everyone quieted and made way for him. He took up the two cards and looked at them carefully. "A forced pactio indeed. I have never seen one so complete, however. The power she put into it must have been amazing." He looked at Max as the American approached to claim the card. "How was it?"

Max couldn't help but grin _really_ wide. "It was great," he said, his face beet red to match Akira's. The effect was strange to see on a man like Max, but there it was. Jennifer nodded but remained silent, her face red as well.

"I am glad to see you are all enjoying yourselves," Headmaster Konoe said. "But please remember this is a school; please keep your amorous relationships between yourselves, ok?" Max, Akira, and Jennifer turned even redder as they apologized.

"Ok, that's enough, there is nothing else to see here," Konoemon said as the crowd began to break up and everyone left but Eva and Chachamaru and those who had been in the clearing in the first place.

While Max and Jennifer pondered over their cards, Eva stalked over to Akira and glared up at the taller girl. "I'm watching you," she said, then turned and walked away.

----

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Author's Note: Berserk Akira is always fun.

Forced Pactio: A pactio formed without going through the proper channels, usually without the benefit of a pactio circle. Only someone with tremendous power can force a pactio, and the results are usually incomplete, typically ending with only a faint connection between the two participants.


	10. Chapter 9

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 9

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Look Who Stayed Up The Sun

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"Everything you have based your life around is a lie. Numbers, equations, the various theorems by which mathematics works, all are useless in the end. Life can't be explained by numbers, and no forty page list of proofs will ever suffice to explain the difference between the living and the dead." There was a pause as the voice seemed to run out of steam. "Even the robot you helped to create with the traitor is proof of this! EVERYTHING IS A LIE!"

Hakase blinked at that. As per usual in her dreams, she was standing in a vast laboratory, huge markerboards filled end to end with unreadable equations along one wall, various lab tables and cabinets lined another. The far wall consisted of windows looking out into space, and the wall behind her was covered in cabinets except for the door. Before her on a table lay a partially dissected Chachamaru. It seemed as though she was supposed to be appalled at such a thing, but she had been the robot girl's primary maintenance provider since she first built her, and had seen similar scenes many times before. As for the voice…

"The mathematics you base your life on are NOTHING! You can't even conceive of the number between zero point nine and one! If these concepts you have built your life upon are so limited, they are worthless!"

Obviously, the invisible speaker expected her to fall to the floor, screaming hysterically and pulling her hair. Instead, Hakase calmly considered the information. Indeed, such thoughts had crossed her mind before; the rules, while the foundation of everything in math and science, had always bothered her. They were useful, but…she had always felt rather limited by them, as though she were trying to fix a computer with nothing but a hammer. You Can't Divide By Zero. If X Is Neither A Nor B, It Must Be C.

"Why must it be C at all?" she said aloud. "Couldn't it be Y(12N)?"

The voice didn't respond for a moment…she seemed to have caught it off guard with her question. She found that she often had that effect on people, ever since she was little.

The voice started again, more hesitantly, but Hakase interrupted again. "In fact," she said, "Why must it all be limited to numbers?" A strange thought was percolating in the back of her mind. "In fact, numbers themselves are far too limiting!" she exclaimed as understanding dawned upon her and a whole new method of analyzing the world blossomed into life in her head. It was not unlike that seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey. "If that's not…then…" she thought for a moment before her jaw dropped. There might as well be a steadily growing drum beat in the background. "You're right…it's not necessary!" she shouted. "Oh dear Mother of God!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "I can see it…I understand it, I understand everything! Time, life, love, I understand it all! I know why Chachamaru developed feelings, I know how magic can exist! Everything is revealed, everything is clear! MY MIND IS FREE! I CAN DIVIDE BY ZERO!!" she screeched as she hopped around in joy, leaving the source of the voice dumbfounded.

----

Meanwhile, in another part of Japan, Gaze snapped out of his trance and scratched his head in confusion. "What the hell was _that?_"

----

Early the next morning, Donner paced back and forth across the small office in the refitted warehouse-cum-factory, sweat beading on his forehead as he crunched a printout in his hand.

Gaze would be arriving for a tour of the facility later in the day, and Donner had nothing but failure to report to the man. Wheeler had been taken care of, but the computer bearing the all-important Rally program was out of reach somewhere in Mahora, surrounded by literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of trained mages in addition to the various wild cards, such as mercenaries, ninjas, and other fighters of various types, any number of which may prove strong enough to deal with the best of the robots he had designed. Well, technically his team had designed them, but he was in charge, so it was the same as if he had done the work himself as far as anyone that mattered was concerned.

He stalked back to his desk and looked once again at the large satellite map of Mahora that he had ordered. It was fairly recent, showing the roads and plazas as they were after the flooding earlier in the year. Overall, things hadn't changed much since before the flood. Some buildings were piles of rubble and others were gone completely, but the roads were the same and that was all that really mattered to the vague plan forming in his mind.

He fished around in a nearby cabinet for a moment, finally coming out with a sheet of transparent plastic, which he carefully attached via clips over the map. He outlined certain landmarks with a felt-tipped pen as he studied the map carefully, plotting the possible locations of various targets. The main points of interest were the university's labs and the Mahora Middle School dorms. Both were easy to defend and hard to attack if the attacker were trying to limit damage to the occupants, however, so they would need a good strategy. Some of those students would make excellent hostages after all, and others would make good test subjects for various programs currently running in other countries. And whoever was in possession of the Rally program would have to be seized immediately, of course. He glanced again at the list of possible targets Gaze had provided. He would have to have someone learn the layout of the dorms and which room belonged to which student. He turned his attention back to the distraction that would be needed.

If he placed an advance guard of robots at the eastern entrance, they would draw the town's defenders. At least, until they were destroyed. There was only so much the robots were capable of without the Rally program, but they should be able to perform the mission he was planning. The cost would be enormous, but he should be able to absorb it.

So the best choice seemed to be to create a diversion via the mass produced robots and then…a grin oddly full of teeth slithered across his face. Yes, this could work. He had to get Gaze's permission, of course, but…it would work.

----

At the same time Donner was pacing in his office, Negi was calling role in his classroom. The students seemed a little better today, and Hakase-san was positively beaming. In fact, she was happier than the child teacher had ever seen her. Sakurako-san was drooping even more today however. "Sakurako-san, are you feeling all right? Are you getting enough sleep?"

She dragged her face across her desktop until she faced Negi. "Ahm allright," she slurred with her face on the drool-covered desk, finally slapping a hand to the surface and trying to push herself erect to a proper sitting position. The result was…oddly disturbing and quite amusing.

"Sakurako is like a slug!" someone shouted, and some of the students grinned. Hakase snorted and then burst into wild laughter, and slowly, hesitantly, others followed suit while Sakurako flapped around, trying to get them to stop. The overall effect was truly ridiculous, and the class' spirit rose as more students joined in.

Negi smiled along with his class as Sakurako-san drooped, looking more like a slug every second. Asuna-san's smirk, Konoka-san's half-hearted grin, Setsuna-san's small smile…things were slowly getting back to normal. It looked like everyone's efforts to guard the student's dreams were working. If only they had a way to protect everyone rather than only a few…

"I'm glad you're all having fun," Sakurako grumbled as she pouted and wiped drool off her cheek.

----

Asuna and Konoka caught up with Akira as she left the school building that afternoon.

"Hey, Akira-san!" the red head called out. Akira stopped walking and turned to see who had called her.

"Yes, Asuna-san?" she asked, still embarrassed about her behavior the other day.

"Hey, I've got a question," Asuna said as she dug around in her bag for a moment. "Ah, here it is. Look at this," she said, pulling out a pactio card with Akira's picture on it. Akira blushed instantly when she looked at it. It was a picture of herself, floating naked with her arms out to the sides, her modesty barely preserved by two long black and orange ribbons floating loosely around her body.

"W-where did you get something like this?!" she asked in horror.

Asuna scratched her head in confusion. "I found it the other day, when you pactioed Max-sensei and Jennifer-san. It had been blown around by the wind, and was stuck in a bush."

"I found one too," Konoka broke in, producing another that also featured Akira. Luckily, she was clothed in this one, though it was only a short yukata-looking thing. There were also nine different-colored spheres arranged symmetrically around her.

"But where did they come from…?" Akira asked, scrunching her forehead in thought.

Asuna and Konoka looked at each other. "That's what we wanted to ask you. Negi never got one when we pactioed with him, so why did you?"

"…I don't know. Maybe we should keep this a secret…" Akira said worriedly as she took the cards. She had heard many stories of how the mage world treated those who sidestepped the rules and messed around with magic in ways it was never meant to be used, and she was quite sure that this was _most_ unusual.

"You should ask Negi-kun about it," Konoka suggested. "If something's wrong, I know he'll be able to help."

"You're probably right," the water girl replied, carefully pocketing the cards and determining not to speak to anyone about them any time soon.

----

"Iincho, I've got something to ask about the assignment the other day," Chisame said as she entered the dorm room the class rep shared with Chizuru, Natsumi, and Kotarou.

"Hmm? Oh, sure," Ayaka said distractedly from her place on the couch. She had been watching Natsumi and Kotarou, who were playing Scrabble on the table. It was quite relaxing after a day of school spent pondering magic, after all. Incidentally, Natsumi was ahead by an amazing amount.

"What are you doing?!" Chisame shouted suddenly, rushing to the table and snatching up Kotarou's drink.

"What's wrong with you, four eyes?"

"What's wrong with me? WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?! You're using that incredibly high end mini laptop as a drink coaster, that's what's wrong with me! That model isn't even available to the public yet, and here you are ruining it you brat!"

"Well excuse me," the boy replied and snatched his drink back as the glasses girl fumed and picked up the small computer.

She flipped the computer open and wasn't surprised to find the battery was dead. 'What is wrong with these people? Using this as a drink coaster of all things, and now letting the battery run all the way down?' She didn't have a charger that would fit the nonstandard, odd looking plug; and, looking around, she was quite sure this group wouldn't know a battery charger from an mp3 player.

"Iincho, do you mind if I take this with me?" Chisame finally asked.

"Ok. Be careful with it, it belonged to Wheeler-san," she said distantly. Chisame didn't know who 'Wheeler-san' was, but was through the door with her prize in a heartbeat, her earlier request completely forgotten.

----

Night fell, and Madoka returned to Chisame's dorm room, promptly crawled into bed, and pulled the cover up over her head. Chisame had grown used to this daily ritual, and didn't even bother to look at the other girl. Instead, all her attention was focused on the small computer on her desk.

She hadn't had a charger in her room that would fit the mini laptop, so she had hunted down Chachamaru and had the robot girl charge the battery for her earlier, only to be stopped by a password screen when she tried to start the computer. Her curiosity piqued, she had set herself to her task with a will, finally using various methods to work out the password and create a new, total access account for herself. And, with that done, she had just started exploring the depths of the hard drive when Madoka came in a moment ago.

'Hmm…Rally. Looks like some kind of OS…this looks interesting,' she thought to herself as she glanced through the long list of programs that seemed to go along with it and ran one that seemed promising. Several errors popped up on the screen. "Hardware errors, memory errors…what is this?" she said aloud.

----

Misa awoke to the sound of a strained groan. She pulled her long hair back out of her eyes and looked at the bed containing the room's other occupant. Sakurako made another noise as she watched, so she slipped out of bed and approached the other girl.

"Sakurako?" she said softly as she placed a hand on the girl's forehead; she pulled it away with a hiss. The other girl had a very high fever and was soaked with sweat. Misa ran as quietly as possible to the bathroom and returned with a bucket of cold water and a wet rag, which she placed on the other girl's forehead. She wasn't quite sure what she was doing, but her mother had always done this for her when she had been sick as a child. She didn't remember much about it except that it had always felt nice.

Apparently Sakurako agreed, as she soon stopped groaning and moving around and fell into a deeper sleep, much to Misa's relief.

----

Donner was awoken from a fitful sleep some time past eleven o'clock that night by a phone call.

He fumbled for the cell phone in the darkness of the room, finally turning on a lamp.

"Donner speaking," he said.

'Yeah boss, I just thought you should know. Someone's using the computer, it's in the Mahora dorms. If our floor plans are correct, the signal is originating from the room of a student, Hasegawa Chisame, I think.' There was the sound of rustling papers. "Yeah, Hasegawa Chisame. Anyway, we have the room number. I've sent the important details via email. That's all, boss.'

"You have done well; you have my thanks, Genji," Donner said and ended the call, his mind racing over how to isolate the target student. If he could just get his hands on that program…

Now that he actually knew the location of the target, he was full of adrenalin. He had to prove his worth to Master Gaze this time, or he might be removed the same way he had removed Wheeler. He had the robots, and he had access to some of the Yukihiro Group's resources. He could do much with this, given proper planning. Now wide awake, Donner quickly made some estimates.

Getting the transportation arranged was the most daunting prospect. He already knew the locations of important resources, but flying in the privately run PMC that was currently in Hokkaido would take some time. He looked over the notes he had written and did some quick calculations. Getting everything arranged and the participants on location without exposing his plan would take two days at most barring plane crash or Mt Fuji erupting. Two days. He chafed under the need for patience, but in the long run two days was nothing. And once the subjects were in transit to wherever he chose to hide them, little could go wrong.

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Author's Note: Hakase is now the only person in the world who can successfully divide by zero and not cause The End Of The World As We Know It. I thought the whole scene was a bit silly, but…eh.


	11. Chapter 10

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 10

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Pouring Like An Avalanche Coming Down The Mountain

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Another afternoon, another day of school ended. Chisame headed back to the dorm as she usually did, almost tripped over some air conditioner repairmen in the hallway on the first floor, and trudged up the stairs to her floor. She unlocked the door to her room and entered, flipping on the light and tossing her bag lightly to the bed. A quick glance was all that was necessary to confirm that her new roommate was not present, and that put a smile on her face. She had been itching to update Chiu's website, but hadn't felt comfortable doing it in front of the other girl, so she had been putting it off. One quick clothing change later and she was seated in front of her computer, but was quickly interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" she called out.

"We were working on the air conditioner unit downstairs, and we need to check the airflow in your room. Can we come in?"

Annoyed, Chisame told them to wait a moment and quickly changed into something more…normal than her latest Chiu outfit and hid anything that might be embarrassing, then opened the door to allow the repairmen inside. Almost immediately, a hand was clapped over her mouth and she was shoved back into the room and pushed down on her stomach on the floor. Something jabbed her in the neck, and only then did the man let go of her. Almost immediately, her extremities began to feel cold and her mind started to drift.

'They injected me with something,' she thought as she watched the two men, who had left her lying in the floor, ransack the room until one of them dumped the contents of her bag onto her bed.

"Found it," he announced as he picked up the mini laptop she had taken from Iincho's room.

"Chisame-san, are you here? I…" Chisame distantly recognized Kugimiya's voice and tried to shout, tried to tell her to run away and get Negi-sensei. It came out something like 'wuhhh, wuth'. Her tongue felt like a balloon. The sounds of a struggle drifted to her ears, followed by a sudden gasp and the sound of a body collapsing to the floor. She tried to turn her head to see what had happened, but she didn't even have the energy to lift it from the floor.

The last thing she heard was one of the repairmen. "Ok, got both targets and the computer. Let 'em know."

----

"Where are they all coming from?!" One of the magic students shouted over the din of battle. Just bare moments before school let out, a massive army of robots had come up out of the river and sewer system at the eastern entrance to the academy. The defenses were instantly put in place and all magic teachers warned of the attack, which sent them scrambling to stop the robots. Wards were quickly put up to keep the normal people out and block any sound or sight of what was about to happen, and the battle was joined as the first wave of robots was blasted back by the magic teachers.

Still, they were vastly outnumbered, almost twenty robots for every mage teacher present. The first responders were thus quickly overwhelmed by the robots that just kept pouring in by the dozens through the narrow entrance.

By the time Max arrived, the situation was dire as the second wave of mage teachers was forced back by hundreds of robots. He recognized a blonde woman he had seen around campus push Touko-sensei out of the way of a ponderous punch by one of the robots only to get hit herself; the low, echoing grunt she made was somehow more poignant than any scream could have been. She was promptly stepped on as the machines continued inexorably forward.

"Max-sensei, you have to use your fire, blow them all away!" a student from one of the fighting clubs called out desperately as he tried to avoid a robot that lunged at him.

"I can't, there are people in there!" Max replied as he looked grimly at the sea of metal and plastic. Several of them had picked up fallen defenders and held them up like shields. "Damn it!" he cursed as he dove in, magically-charged fists flying. He had changed, he told himself. He would never do things like that again. Those who were still capable followed his example and waded in swinging while others settled in for precision sagita magica. With wide scale magic out of the question, this was what it came down to, after all.

----

Natsumi was shaking in fear. Seconds ago she had heard a scream from next door, followed by the sound of a short scuffle and the heavy thump of a body falling on the floor. Terrified and alone in the dorm room she shared with Kotarou-kun, Iincho, and Chizu-nee, she had opened the door to the hallway just enough to peak out.

The hallway had been filled with men in grayish blue coveralls, one of whom was dragging a heavy cloth bag with the unmistakable shape of a human body inside.

Natsumi had ducked back inside before any of them saw her, and looked around frantically for a moment for a place to hide. Someone turned the doorknob behind her, but she had thankfully had enough sense to lock the door when she closed it.

----

The man in the hallway opened the door and pocketed his lockpicks before stepping inside. He looked in the usual places; under the bed, in the shower, in the closet, but the room was empty. He pulled out a walkie-talkie and pressed a button. "Eraser, this is Twenty-Two. Targets Code Life, Gold, and Black are not in primary location, over." He listened to the response. "I copy, over and out." He left the room after that, shutting the door carefully behind him.

After a moment, the lower cupboard in the bathroom opened up and Natsumi poked her head out and looked around. The sounds in the hallway were dying down now. There was no more muffled conversation, just the sound of someone walking quickly through the hallway toward the stairs; then silence. She curled up inside the cupboard again, pulled the door shut, and started to cry.

----

Setsuna arrived at the site of the robot battle just in time to save Max-sensei from getting overwhelmed. Sliding Yuunagi from its sheath, she laid waste to the robots surrounding the PE teacher, then proceeded to cut a swath through those still coming on while Konoka stayed in the back, healing those injured by the fighting. Max limped back and joined the non-combatants to catch his breath.

He was absurdly glad to see the blonde woman who had been hit and stepped on earlier lying awake on a makeshift pallet, covered in bandages. She spotted him looking at her and gave a painful half grin and a truly ridiculous thumbs up, considering her condition.

Max couldn't help but grin back at her between big gulps of water. As grim as the situation could be, there were always moments like these that made one see the light at the end of the tunnel if one knew where to look for them.

"Are you ready yet, Max-sensei?" someone asked. Then another shout from farther away caught his attention. "They're getting too close, move the injured further back! Hurry!"

The fire elemental grunted as he stood up and dusted off his pants. Time to get back to work.

----

Some time later, it was finally over. No one knew how many were dead or injured, and the last of the robots had retreated or been destroyed. Jennifer looked out over the field of battle with an exhausted gaze. Things had gotten so chaotic after the robots overran the front lines and swarmed through the back, where the injured had been taken earlier, that any semblance of order had been lost. For a while there, it had gotten down to individuals being forced to hold their own in a sea of machinery, some forced to climb up trees and light poles to escape capture. Few were uninjured, and quite a few people were still missing.

Even now, command had yet to be restored, and people seemed to be randomly wandering the battlefield, all staring at the ground. Someone started crying out beyond the dense smoke around the gate, and the sound was so lonesome that Jennifer shivered.

"They say that when you shiver like that, a goose stepped on your grave," Takahata said as he strolled up to stand beside her. His ripped clothing and the hasty bandage tied around his hand showed that he hadn't weathered the attack unharmed, but he was much better off than so many others. "I'm sure he's fine," he said after a moment.

Max hadn't yet returned.

Jennifer reached out and hesitantly took Takahata's uninjured hand in her own, and dragged him out into the battlefield. She didn't want to be alone in that field of death.

----

"Come on, this isn't healthy, man," Gotokuji said. He had a bad burn on his arm and a very painful bruise on his stomach, but he was otherwise unharmed. The fighter had come upon Max just as the girl slipped away. "There wasn't anything you could do for her."

"I know that," Max snapped. He looked back down at the girl. Barely fifteen, just a kid. She had clung to him so tightly at the end…even now, so long afterward, her arms were thrown around his waist, her small fist was still knotted in the back of his torn shirt. "Will you help me with…?" he asked the other man, unable to say what he needed to say.

"Sure."

Together, they disentangled the poor girl's arms, and Max stood up painfully, the big bruise on his leg making itself known.

He had seen the girl take the robot's punch and the blood spray from her mouth, and knew he was too late even as he rushed to her side. He hadn't even known the girl's name, he had only seen her once or twice in all the time he had spent at Mahora.

She hadn't spoken a word, just looked up at him pleadingly with blood dribbling from her mouth, and he had pulled her into his lap and hugged her until she was gone, letting her know someone cared. It was more than anyone but Jennifer would have done for him, but he didn't care. The situation had just been so pitiful… She looked so much like his old friend Rikki, who had met a similar fate many years before. Not her face, exactly, but…that expression and her eyes. He forced the old memory down and returned to the task at hand.

He took off the remains of his coat and laid it over the girl, then took a good long look at the carnage all around. "Over there," he said finally, pointing to a nearby mound of broken robots and the injured man who sat leaning against them.

Gotokuji nodded and led the way.

----

The next day, the students were told that there had been a terrorist attack on a facility bordering the school, and due to the investigation into the circumstances behind the attack, school would be canceled for the next two weeks until things settled down. The students were to return to their real homes if at all possible, though there would be special exceptions made for those with unusual circumstances.

----

The list of dead and missing was passed out among the teachers early the next day, followed by much crying and gnashing of teeth as names were recognized and people were remembered.

Negi somehow managed to hold back his tears, but was lucky enough to have none of his students or friends listed as dead. Instead, nine of his students were listed as missing, all of them among his close circle of friends.

According to the stories of the survivors, Setsuna had been injured by an exploding robot and Konoka had run out into the battle toward her, neither was seen again. Ku Fei had dove into the battle and was quickly lost from sight due to her small stature…she hadn't been seen since. Kazumi, Yue, Nodoka, and Haruna had been on campus far from the battle, but had disappeared none the less. According to video from the security cameras, a group of people had infiltrated the dorms under cover as a team of air conditioner repairmen and captured several of the students, Misa, Sakurako, Chisame and Madoka among them. The other missing students must have been snatched as they moved around the campus. Others he had been familiar with were missing as well, including the magic students Takane D. Goodman and Sakura Mei, among others. Oddly, many of those who had been captured or used as human shields by the robots were released soon afterward…none of them remembered what had happened to them or why they had suddenly become aware while wandering around by the river, but it was generally thought among the mage teachers that these people were captured in error by badly programmed robots, and then hypnotized or drugged to forget what had happened.

Surprisingly, only four people had been killed…one student, one teacher, and two civilians who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were over a hundred injured, however, and another dozen or so other than Negi's students were still missing. Many of the injured were those who had been used as human shields by the robots; suffering bruised and broken ribs and arms for the most part. Apparently, some of the robots had been programmed to snatch anyone that came close. These people had been held hostage by the robots throughout the battle until they were dropped abruptly during the retreat at the end, or were found wandering around dazed later. The whole incident brought back uneasy memories of what had happened during the summer, and there were rumors of an impending mass exodus of students transferring out.

But still…

Negi's eyes watered as he looked over the list again. If he hadn't gotten them involved…

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Author's Note: Eh…was that okay? Anyway, that was a big battle, but it was only a diversion as specialized teams went and abducted various students. Pretty basic plan, there, but effective when your opponents don't have enough people to defend against the robots

Also, in case you couldn't remember, Gotokuji is the guy with the pompadour haircut that commentated alongside Chachamaru during the tournament at the festival in the manga.


	12. Chapter 11

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 11

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Out From The New Day's Mist I Run

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'You know what to do.'

"What do you mean?" the girl asked. She felt sort of vague, as though she were made of marshmallow and was floating in a meringue. It could be worse, she supposed. She could be something like a cracker instead, all crusty and hard. She had a feeling that having those sorts of thoughts and using those sorts of descriptions was something she would normally never do.

'You are neither a marshmallow nor a cracker,' the voice replied with perfect poise. It had a nice accent, sort of a muted British accent, she supposed. Or maybe that was Australian? She had never been able to tell the difference.

'Clear your mind of this artificial fugue, and step back into your power.'

"My power?"

'Your power,' the voice confirmed. 'When you awaken, you will find yourself being transported via van. Wait for an opening, and then seize the opportunity; you will not get a second chance.'

"Seize my chance?"

'Wake up.'

----

Chisame was startled back to wakefulness by the sound of squealing tires, and only had time to realize she was in the back of a van with her hands tied in front of her before something struck a tremendous blow to the side of the van, collapsing the right side inward in front of her and sending the van into a barrel roll down a woody embankment until it came to rest in a shallow stream, where water began coming in through the windows and pooling in what had been the left side of the van. Kugimiya was there beside her as well, looking rather bruised and dazed, but awake; Chisame had the feeling that she looked much the same. A quick look showed that one of their captors was obviously dead with his neck at an impossible angle, but the driver was starting to move around. And...there. She picked up the bag containing the mini laptop.

'I guess this is my chance,' she thought, wondering why that idea seemed familiar as she struggled to her feet and watched Kugimiya do the same. Without another word, the two teens squeezed through the space formerly occupied by the back door of the van and ran off into the nearby woods.

----

She wasn't sure when it had happened, but after a moment Konoka was aware of being awake. She forced her eyes wider open but quickly shut them again against the glare. She brought a hand up to wipe her eyes, and was confused that it moved so slowly. She sat up and looked around through slitted eyes at her surroundings, wondering what had happened. She was in a sterile white room, sparsely furnished with a bed, table, one chair, and a toilet, all of which were solidly bolted to the floor. She stood up and her head swam so severely that she would have fallen had she not slumped against the wall.

Almost at once a crackly speaker roared to life. "Don't try to move, the tranquilizers haven't worn off yet," a man's distorted voice stated so loudly that it set her ears ringing.

"Where is Secchan?"

The voice didn't respond.

She climbed back up on her bed and wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling her knees up to her chin, realizing for the first time that she was wearing a white hospital gown. Growing more worried by the second, she inspected the small room more closely, and spotted a security camera in one corner as well as a box that looked like part of an ancient speaker system poking out of the ceiling. The door seemed heavy and had no handle on the inside, and a small six inch, wire-reinforced window set fairly high up in it. There was a narrow strip at the bottom that seemed to be hinged and reminded her far too much of those American movies where a plate of terrible looking food is pushed through to the prisoner.

She could handle all of this however; what she was worried about was Secchan. The other girl had been badly hurt when Konoka saw her last, burned by hot oil and fire from an exploding robot…Konoka had screamed when she saw that, and had run straight out into the battlefield for her Secchan, healing her as best she could before the two of them had been snatched up by robots and brought down into the sewers, where some people had injected her with something that made her fall asleep. How long ago had that been? She jerked as her mind cleared more and she realized her belongings were missing.

"Where's my pactio card?! Where is it?" she demanded. "And where is Secchan? Is she ok?"

No one answered.

----

"They slipped up," Hakase said, her best 'mad scientist' grin coming out as Chachamaru entered the room. "Huhuhu," she laughed forebodingly.

"What did you find, Hakase?" the robot girl asked.

Hakase turned the monitor around to show the gynoid what she meant. "See, they forgot to remove the identifying tags from this program!" In Hakase's opinion, the basic AI program, while rather clunky, was quite good considering that the writer hadn't had Chao's information to work with. Not anything like the work of art that formed the core of Chachamaru's system, however. Still, not bad. "Hmph. Amateurs."

The program the girl was deconstructing had come from one of the more advanced robots. There had been several types involved in the attack, model numbers printed discreetly in roman numerals here and there. On a hunch, she had set her team scanning through the programming for identifying tags; most of the robots were clean, but one short production run used an older version of the program that hadn't been cleaned…someone had probably gotten drunk the night before and missed the problem. Once she had figured out what to look for, the rest was easy.

"See, right here." She pointed to a line of documentation near the top of the editor. "Kurogane Electronics. I just looked it up, and it's a child company of another child company of the Yukihiro Group...they build computers and do a lot of engineering. I don't know why they would attack the school or kidnap students, but at least now we know where to start."

Chachamaru nodded and accessed her records for information on the group. "They expanded roughly six months ago, turning a previously unused warehouse into a factory that went into use three months ago next Tuesday. Purpose of factory: unknown. Materials gathered for production: two thousand—"

"That's enough, Chachamaru. Can you give me a printout?"

"Yes, Hakase."

----

The ceiling was the off-white, almost beige color of aging linen, covered in small bumps of plaster or something similar. Her gaze slowly shifted to the ancient cobwebs that had gathered in the corners, and then the streamers of dust that hung from them. She just looked blankly at it all until suddenly realizing she was awake.

Kazumi found herself in a hotel room that made an attempt to be 'charming', but came across as 'cheap'. She tried to recall how she had gotten here, but all she could remember was stepping out into the hallway in the dorm and hitting the floor. She didn't even know why she had fallen.

She sat up and put a hand to her head as it swam, squeezing her eyes shut until the dizziness passed. Using the bed post, she pulled herself to her feet and crossed the small room to look out through the barred window. It looked like a very run down section of some big industrial town, but she couldn't tell any more than that.

Suddenly apprehensive, she crossed to the door and tried the handle. It was locked from the outside. She stepped back warily and looked around again, more carefully this time. "Security cameras?" she asked herself aloud as she spotted the one in the corner of the ceiling. A quick search resulted in three more tiny cameras cleverly placed here and there. So cleverly placed in fact, that most people other than Kazumi would be completely unaware of them.

Other than the locked door, there were two doors in another wall. Trying them, she found that one opened on a small bathroom with a shower and the other opened on an empty closet. Checking carefully over the room again, she found that anything that might be of use had either been removed, or had never been there in the first place. There weren't even any curtains on the window or any hangers in the closet. No shower curtain or rod either. She frowned at that as she noticed another camera hidden above the mirror in the bathroom.

What _was_ this place, some kind of hidden Yakuza prison? She backed up to the wall warily as she recalled the recurring dream she had been having lately; in her dreams, she had been captured and tortured by the Yakuza for taking pictures of something or other...it was different every time. And then, for the first time, she realized her bag and camera were gone. She stalked to the center of the room and looked up at the big security camera in the corner.

"Where is my stuff?" No answer. "Come on, I don't have all day!" she yelled as she tried to check her watch, only to find that it was gone as well. "So you stole my watch too?"

The door behind her opened and she got ready to run.

"Don't try it," a startlingly deep voice said. She looked up at the speaker. And up, and up, and up. The man was massive, seven feet tall at least, maybe more, and built like an olympic weightlifter. He looked at her threateningly, and she unwillingly took a few steps back, then, once started, continued all the way back to the far wall next to the window as two more men entered. One of them looked like a fairly normal person next to the giant, but the other…she could tell he was vile even at a glance. She almost cringed as his eyes roamed over her, but forced herself to glare back. It came across as a wavery, eye-watery stare that brought an amused smirk from the man, and she hated herself for it.

"W-what's going on here?" she asked, hating herself even more for stuttering and the weakness she had already shown in front of these men.

"Well, you've been kidnapped obviously," the normal looking man said.

"What are you going to do to me?" Kazumi asked, realizing that that was a question she should not have asked in front of the vile man even as she spoke.

The vile man grinned. "Whatever we want," he said, looking her over again and pausing on her chest. She put her arms in front of herself defensively and averted her gaze as the man laughed. He truly was vile, from his greasy hair to his dirty hands and cheap clothing, every inch a monster.

"Here are the rules," the normal man began. "First, stay quiet, don't try to call out to any of those passing by below or anyone you hear in the hallway. For every person you attempt to speak with, we will break a finger." He said the words in the same bored tone as a student reading aloud in class. "Second, don't try to escape. If you do, we will break one of your legs." The vile man was looking at her legs now, and she wished that she had put on a pair of pants instead of a skirt. "Third, do what we ask. If you refuse to answer questions, be prepared for repercussions. If you disobey our commands, be prepared for repercussions. If you cause too much trouble, we will kill you. You are expendable."

The normal-looking man's speech sent her mind reeling, and somehow she was more afraid of him than the other two. To say things like that without any change of expression from the bored look he had worn since he entered…she shivered and the vile man grinned again. The big man remained silent and impassive as he had since he entered the room. She looked from one to the next, and for the first time felt true despair growing in her heart.

----

Mahora Headmaster Konoe Konoemon swept his gaze over the teachers arrayed before him, piercing each one with his gaze, one by one, while they squirmed.

"Headmaster—"

"Silence." Konoe didn't even have to raise his voice. "You were all hired here on the condition that you help protect the students and civilians living and working in this town," he began.

"We tried—"

"Silence!" Konoe said, smacking a fist on his desk. "You seem to have forgotten that we must act as defenders for those who cannot defend themselves! Because of your incompetence, four people have died, and many more are missing, possibly kidnapped! Who was in charge of watching the East Entrance?"

One of the teachers reluctantly raised a hand.

"I see you are in particularly good condition, considering what you _must_ have been through yesterday," Konoe said, his voice deadly calm.

"Headmaster—"

"You are now demoted to apprentice. Turn in your staff. You will begin retraining in the academy in France immediately. Well? What are you waiting for?"

The stunned teacher left the room, and Konoe turned his attention back to the others.

"Tell me, Takamichi, why do you think you failed to properly defend the school?"

Takamichi straightened, looking uncomfortable. "Headmaster, our defensive wards were successful in alerting everyone, but as a whole our reactions were wild and uncoordinated, resulting in many people being captured before most of us even arrived. We were therefore unable to use wide-scale magic for fear of killing them, and were reduced to hand to hand combat against the attackers."

"I understand you yourself didn't arrive at the site of battle for at least ten minutes once the alarms sounded," Konoe said. "You are hereby assigned to late night patrols for the next month and demoted until such time as you prove your competence. Dismissed. Touko!"

"Yes sir!"

"You did well, considering how quickly you were on the scene. However, as Head of Defense, you should have taken charge rather than wade into battle. You will review your behavior and deliver a report on the mistakes made in the defense, what could and should have been done, and how we might avoid something similar in the future. Dismissed."

Konoe waited until she had left, then turned back to the crowd of teachers and mages standing before him. "Max Linell!"

Max stepped forward.

"While I appreciate your attempts to rescue the injured or captured defenders, your power would have been of much greater use in other ways. Also, had you not taken so long to respond to the wards, it is conceivable that your power, due to its unusual nature, could have gone far in halting the invasion at the east gate. You will undergo a course on group battle and defense tactics and will accompany Takamichi on his late night patrols. Dismissed!"

He dressed the worst transgressors down one by one, liberally spreading around demotions and punishments and retraining orders, until he was left with a group of about twenty people.

"The rest of you are for the most part new here, or untrained or unused to this sort of situation. You responded quickly. Unfortunately, most of your efforts were in vain due to the lack of coordination between defenders. You will all undergo a course on group interaction during a defense situation at an undetermined point in the near future. I will alert you when it is ready. Dismissed."

When the office was finally cleared out, Konoemon let out a sigh of relief. He _hated_ doing things like this, but it had to be done. The mage teachers had grown soft and unfocused; it was a trend he had first noticed during the incidents at the school festival months ago, and it had only been cemented during the summer and this most recent incident. He looked at the notes he had taken on who would get what punishment, and frowned. They might hate him for it, but he would mold them back into a group skilled in all sorts of situations; he couldn't afford not to.

Now that Mahora had been successfully attacked not once but _twice_, there was no other choice.


	13. Chapter 12

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 12

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I Ain't Got No Crystal Ball.

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Seven people stood or sat in silence around a table in Eva's resort, contemplating their options and trying to work out a plan.

"Negi…"

The boy flinched at Asuna's voice, but still refused to raise his head. His hair was covering his eyes, but everyone present knew he was on the verge of crying.

"You do realize you only have two weeks, right?" Eva said suddenly, her voice echoing in the cavernous room. Negi winced again, then quickly wiped away some tears.

Max grumbled something under his breath, and Eva shot a glare at him. Clearly, she did not want the elemental in her resort. Jennifer met her glare instead, managing to hold it until Eva got bored and muttered something about 'foolish children'.

"Negi," Asuna said again. The boy was blaming himself for this disaster, like he did with everything. "Hey, Negi! Wake up, snap out of it!"

"But Asuna-san," Negi said. "I don't know what to do!" And the tears started flowing in earnest.

"Well that's obvious, isn't it?" Kotarou broke in. "We just have to go and save them."

"But how? We don't even know where they are, and I don't want to involve my stu—"

Asuna smacked the back of his head. "We're already involved, idiot!"

Eva sighed and took a sip of the tea one of Chachamaru's sisters brought in as Asuna and Negi continued their comedy routine. "Chachamaru's with Hakase right now," she said as she placed the tea cup on the table. "Apparently, they've found a bit of information about whoever made the robots, and they're looking into it."

"What?! This is news to me!" Asuna shouted, jumping up from her chair hard enough to knock it over.

Eva raised an eyebrow at the fallen chair, and gave Asuna a blank look. "Of course it is." She took another sip of tea.

"Why didn't you tell us?!"

The thump the teacup made when she put it on the table made everyone jump. "If you were told every little bit of information as it became available, nothing would ever get done, brat!"

"Don't call me a brat!"

And so, Asuna and Eva began _their_ comedy routine.

Akira, who had been silent up to now, looked hesitantly at Max and Jennifer, who were across from her at the table. "Do they know where everyone is being held?" she asked, her voice oddly wavery. The density of the magic here made her feel strange and…yeah. She was embarrassed to feel like that, and found that she couldn't meet Eva's gaze or ask her anything directly either.

Eva dusted off her dress and sat back in her chair. "Just hints, nothing more," she said, waving off the girl's question.

"They'll probably separate the hostages, keep them in small groups in different locations," Max said finally. "No sense in putting all your eggs in one basket," he said when everyone looked at him. "They obviously knew what they were doing; other than those two cheerleaders, the others were all involved with magic in some way. In a school with thousands of normal students, well, the odds are way too high to say that it was anything else."

"But what about Kakizaki and Sakurako?" Asuna asked. "They're just normal."

Eva rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair, propping her feet up on the table. Idiots. All of them.

"They were probably just unlucky."

Eva gritted her teeth as she listened to them prattle on.

"Hmph. Unlucky? Have you ever actually met Sakurako, Max-sensei?"

The sound of Eva's chair legs slamming to the floor silenced everyone.

"You people would argue with a rock," Eva said under her breath as she got to her feet. "You're wasting my time," she said flatly. "Training! Apprentices, come here. The rest of you, don't break anything," she ordered as Negi, Kotarou, and Asuna gathered around her.

When they were gone, Max looked at the other two. "So, what do you say? Let's see how these pactios work."

----

Chisame was awoken the next morning by a line of sunlight formed by the cracks of the boarded up doorway of the small building. She ached all over, both from sleeping on the hard floor and running so much the day before.

Chisame and Madoka had run for hours, it seemed, stopping only briefly to remove the bindings around each other's hands. Luckily, they had found an ancient shrine building in the woods just after dark, so they had had a place to sleep at least, cold though it had been.

She groaned as she shielded her eyes from the light and shivered. Winter really was approaching fast, it seemed.

"Shh!"

Chisame froze and realized she heard activity outside. Kugimiya was standing by the door, holding a broken off piece of wood as one might hold a dagger, blade down and ready to be plunged into the soft spot between the collarbone and shoulder blade. She was listening to the sounds outside.

"Doesn't look like they came this way, Sarge," an unfamiliar voice said in slow, heavily accented Japanese.

"Check that building there."

Footsteps approached and someone tugged on the boards covering the doorway. "It's solid, they ain't in there," a deeper voice said. Chisame hoped against hope that the man wouldn't notice the loose boards at the bottom that they had pulled out and carefully replaced the night before during their breaking-and-entering.

She could see the man's legs through the narrow spaces between boards. Abruptly, a heavy pack was dropped to the ground, and the man knelt down and started rummaging through it.

"What are you doing, Carter?"

"Just looking for my cigs," the deep voice replied after a moment. There was a papery noise as the man pulled out a cigarette, and an odd scraping sound Chisame recognized as coming from someone flicking a lighter. "Damn, last one," the man said, then shoved the empty box of cigarettes into the narrow space under the bottom board. "Anyone got any trash?" He shoved some other things under as well.

"Sure, here ya go," someone said. After a moment, they were done.

"Let's get out of here Sarge, looks like they didn't come this way. They might've followed the river back there," Carter said after a moment.

"You're right. Pack up, let's go."

Chisame and Madoka stayed in place, hardly daring to breathe until they were completely sure that the men were gone. Both of them let out a deep breath at the same time, prompting a tired, strained smile from Madoka, which Chisame tried and failed to reciprocate.

"I was sure they would find the loose boards," Madoka said after a moment as she leaned against the wall, dropping the piece of wood she had been holding as if unaware until then that she had even picked it up. When the other girl didn't reply, she glanced over at her and saw her looking at something in the pile of rubbish the men had pushed under the door.

"…I think they did," Chisame said, her face pale as she picked out two energy bars and a carefully folded piece of paper with 'Mana' written on it. "Or one of them, anyway."

"Let's go."

"Yeah."

----

Natsumi paced around the dorm room, debating on whether to tell Negi about what she had witnessed. She shivered again as she recalled the kidnapping incident, and quickly changed her train of thought. 'Chizu-nee, Kotarou-kun, Iincho…' she thought to herself. They were all strong, each in his or her own way. They stood out from the crowd, and they could probably do something about it. But…

"Gahhh!" Natsumi groaned as she pulled her hair. "What do I do?!"

"What's wrong, Natsumi-chan?"

She froze midway through the process of yanking her hair out and turned around to see Chizu-nee in the doorway with a look of concern on her face.

"Oh, it's nothing, Chizu-nee!" she lied. "Have you seen Kotarou-kun?" she asked, just to talk about something.

"He is training with Negi-sensei," the dark haired girl answered as she went into the kitchen and began making some tea. "Natsumi-chan…tell me what's bothering you," Chizuru said, her tone serious.

"Well…I think we were targets too. To get kidnapped," Natsumi finally said in a wavery tone as she curled up on the couch.

"Oh?"

"Y-yeah, I…I overheard them."

"Natsumi-chan?"

----

"Ooh, I like this one, she's feisty," someone said in the hallway outside Kazumi's room several days after the introductions.

"Ok, ok, I'll calm down, just don't try to touch me or I'll kill you," a familiar female voice said haughtily.

Kazumi almost felt curious enough to remove the blanket she was hiding under, but a mildly amused grunt stopped her cold. _He_ was out there. Rav, the man she had thought of as the 'normal man' the first time she saw him. He had promised horrible things if she disobeyed during that first meeting, and she knew beyond any doubt now that he would follow through with his promises. The odd thing was that he had checked up on her several times, alone or with the big man, but never with the third man. He hadn't said a word about punishments or even made any threats at all since that first meeting…he would just give her a quick once-over and ask if she felt healthy. But the way he did it, she might as well not even be human, or even living. That horrible Caesar, the vile man, was a terrible beast, but Rav…he was a monster.

She listened to the muffled sounds as someone was put into a room down the hall. The voices were too far away to understand, but she could catch occasional words. Nothing that made any sort of sense, however.

After a moment a door slammed and footsteps approached, finally coming to a stop before her own door. She huddled deeper into her blanket in the corner of her closet until she heard the footsteps leave.

She started to cry.

----

Misa and Sakurako had been thrown into a small storage room together the day before. They were lucky to be alive. One member of the small group that seemed to be in charge had wanted to kill them and dump their bodies out in the ocean somewhere, but the leader declined, preferring instead to stuff them in this tiny storage room instead. Being forced to share the small bed had been a bit awkward, but they had managed. The food, while bland, hadn't been bad, and they could drink anything they wanted as long as it was water or was something made by the pepsi company. Even the guard was friendly, joking with them whenever they talked to him and everything. The worst part was the sheer boredom. It was a bit odd, really. Somehow, the situation didn't seem real in Misa's opinion. More like something you might see on an American sitcom. But it was more boring than anything else.

'At least we have the playdoh,' Misa thought to herself. They had well over two hundred cases of the stuff in the storage room, actually. When Sakurako had asked the guard for something to do, he had smirked and told them to play with it, so they had. "I haven't done anything like this in a long time," Misa said as she put the finishing touches on a small statue of Negi-kun. It had taken a while to get the hair right, but it was worth it.

"I know I know, isn't it fun?" the other girl exclaimed, surrounded by an army of playdoh cats.

She could tell the guard was amused, but that was all that resulted from it. Sakurako continued to make cats long after Misa grew bored and plopped down on the bed. She glanced over at her slightly-sagging diorama of Dekopin Rocket On Stage and smirked as the playdoh version of herself fell flat on its face, overwhelmed by it's not quite true to life chest, legs sticking up in the air.

"I'll get some sleep, I guess," she said after a moment. Sakurako only made a noncommittal sound as she finished another cat.

----

Hours later, Misa woke hazily from an odd dream of an unstoppable cat army to find that Sakurako had turned off the lights and crawled into the bed at some point. It seemed that the whole floor was covered in motion, but she was too tired to investigate and drifted back to sleep.

----

Ayaka stalked to Eva's cabin and pounded on the door. No one answered, so she tried the handle and found the door unlocked. Wandering through the house revealed nothing but a lot of dolls, so she eventually tried the basement, where she found an odd series of bubbles with tiny scenery inside. The bubbles were connected by tubes.

"What…?"

She came closer, bending over one of the spheres when an odd sense of vertigo welled up. And, just like that, she was standing in front of a huge castle, staring wide eyed at Negi-sensei, Max-sensei, Jennifer-san, Asuna-san, Akira-san, Kotarou-san, and Eva-san, all of whom looked at her incredulously.

"Ah…"

"Oh…"

"Is…is this magic?" Ayaka asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," Asuna answered after a moment.

"I see," the class rep said as she looked around. "Is this…this is inside the glass bubbles, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes. Why did you barge into someone else's house, Yukihiro Ayaka?" Eva demanded.

"I came in search of Negi-sensei," Ayaka said as she continued eyeing the enormous castle. "Chachamaru-san told me I would find you at Evangeline-san's home, but I didn't think…is this real?"

Everyone nodded.

"…wow…"

----

----

----

Author's note: Things are building up, it won't be long now.


	14. Chapter 13

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 13

123456

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

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Madoka spotted the man standing further down the street an instant before he saw her. Thinking quickly, she shoved Chisame into a nearby store and took off in another direction, trying to draw his attention. Dodging and darting here and there to get through the crowd, she purposefully kept her speed low in order to keep the pursuer on her tail and away from the other girl. He and several others had been after them all day, even following them into whatever town this was. Looking back at the man chasing her, she ducked around a corner and ran straight into another man's arm, smashing her face against hard muscle and falling to the concrete sidewalk.

The man who had been chasing her ran up cursing and pulled a syringe from his pocket while Madoka scrambled to her feet, only to be grabbed by the man that had knocked her down. She dug an elbow into his side and smashed her head backward into his chin. He let go of her with a curse and she staggered a moment, slightly dazed by the impact. She backed away from the two men, trying to keep an eye on each as they spread out and attempted to flank her.

"Come on girl, don't make this worse than it has to be," said the man with the syringe. He just looked like any guy one might see on the street, and that was the worst part…the kidnapper actually looked respectable. The other man too…Madoka glanced at him again. He looked like an amateur bodybuilder or something. Roughly forty years old, slightly balding. Again, just a normal guy, like any other person one might pass on any street in Japan. She continued backing up until she bumped into a wall behind her, then sidestepped along the wall as the two men carefully approached. Feeling the wall end behind her, she turned and darted straight into a small alcove that contained nothing but a locked door. She felt the prick of the needle piercing her flesh before she could react, pumping fast acting tranquilizers into her system, and then it was too late as the two men backed off out of reach, waiting for the incredibly fast-acting drugs to take effect.

"You should have just come with us," the bodybuilder said regretfully as she began to sway and flopped against the wall as her knees began to buckle and her extremities grew cold. The other man took a few steps toward her, then stopped when she raised her fist threateningly. She fell to her knees, still glaring at them, using all her willpower to remain awake as long as possible. She dropped to her bottom, still glaring, leaning on the brick wall beside her, the strength gone from her hands. She tried to clench her fist when they approached again, but her fingers only twitched. She felt her eyelids drooping and her mind grew foggy. One last attempt to stand up only left her off balance, and she fell hard on the pavement, bumping her head. Now she was looking at the narrow strip of sky visible high above in the space between the two buildings' roofs. Two dark shapes moved into her field of view, and then everything faded.

----

Chisame ducked into the back room of the small clothing store she had been pushed into, eliciting a surprised cry from a female worker. Not bothering to apologize, she pushed the back exit open and found herself in an alleyway cluttered with boxes and trash bags. Quickly getting her bearings, she ran to the far end of the alley, peeked around the corner, and darted out into the crowd. Almost immediately another man, a red-headed foreigner this time, approached at a brisk walk; Chisame turned back into the alleyway, running to the other end and knocking over a pile of boxes behind her as she went. Tightly clutching the backpack containing the stolen mini laptop, she whirled around, looking for a place to go. A police box across the street caught her attention, but it was empty for some unknown reason.

Cursing under her breath, Chisame calmly strolled out into the crowd as if she was a local. She glanced into an alleyway as she passed, missing a step as she saw two men loading an unconscious Kugimiya into the back of a van.

She was so intent on the scene before her that the foreigner had grabbed her arm before she realized he was there.

"Come on then, girlie," he said in an odd accent, and she jabbed at his eyes with her free hand before she even realized what she was doing. There was a brief sensation similar to poking a cube of jello, and she jerked her hand back in disgust as the man cried out.

"Damn it!" he shouted in pain, his voice echoing between the building and drawing shocked looks from the passersby. She shook off his loosened grip on her arm and darted into the street running as fast as she could and dodging cars, then pushed her way through the crowd on the sidewalk, drawing many odd looks as she tried her best to get away.

She went into another alleyway and ran to the far end, then went down the next street for about twenty meters and ducked into another alley. She stopped dead, disbelief of the sight before her drawing the frantic energy from her limbs.

The alleyway was a dead end.

She went back to the entrance and took a quick peek around the corner. The redheaded foreigner was out there, looking around. She backed up to where the alley ended in a wall and sat down behind a dumpster, pulling her knees to her chin and burying her face in them, hoping and praying that they wouldn't come into the alley far enough to see her.

'I can't let them get me, I can't let them get me!' she repeated to herself. But she wasn't strong, not like Kugimiya or Sakurazaki. In a contest of strength, she would be dead last. Her artifact would be of no help in this situation either. In a last ditch effort, she tried using the telepathy function of her pactio card again, but there was no response; Negi was too far away. She put the card back and clutched the backpack to her chest. 'This mini laptop must be important,' she thought to herself. The first kidnappers had taken the time to search for it, after all. 'Why did Iincho give this to me? I could be at home, I could be updating Chiu's blog, but nooo, instead I'm here. Oh God, I'm going to kill somebody!'

Something fell down on the other side of the dumpster and Chisame jumped and screeched "Don't kill me!"

A cat stepped out and meowed at her insistently.

"Only a cat," she said aloud and almost laughed. It felt like it might quickly become hysterical laughter, however, so she stopped. She knew if she started laughing now, it would all be over.

The cat continued to stare at her, and she realized with a start that its eyes were an oddly human brown color. It walked up to her and placed a paw on her shoe, meowed meaningfully, and took a bite out of her leg. 'Ow! What's up with this cat?! Stupid cat, biting people…' She supposed that she was exhausted, and it was muddling her thoughts. The cat leaped back about three feet when she reached for it, then meowed again.

It was trying to lead her somewhere. "Why not, I'm half insane already," Chisame said aloud as she stood up clumsily and stepped around the dumpster. The cat was gone, but she noticed a set of stairs leading down into a shady alcove in the wall she hadn't noticed before. She peered into the darkness and saw a door at the bottom. 'Might as well try it. Can't be any worse than disappearing Lassie-wannabe cats or redheaded foreign kidnappers…' she thought as she went down the steps. She turned the handle on the door, and it opened slightly under her hand. Quiet music floated out; it was a tune that seemed somehow familiar, though she couldn't say where she had heard it before. Someone shouted at the entrance to the alleyway, so she stepped inside and pulled the door shut after her.

It seemed to be a bar, though she supposed something like this would more properly be called a pub. Soft lighting made details fuzzy, but didn't do anything to hide the antique-seeming chairs and tables or the famous paintings in various styles on the walls. It was quite an eclectic collection of paintings; she spotted several that she had seen in various textbooks over the years. The occupants were unusual as well. There was an old man with gray hair and military fatigues sitting with his back to the wall at the other end of the room, an old foreign woman dressed in what Chisame thought of as 'poor person' style clothing at a window seat, and an elegant looking younger woman about Shizuna-sensei's age, wearing some sort of long, tight dress that fit like a glove above the waist and billowed out loosely below mid thigh. She had an odd looking pipe with a tiny bowl as well; the younger woman sat at the bar. None of the occupants were Japanese.

"Welcome, Hasegawa-san."

Chisame looked at the speaker, who appeared to be the bartender. His voice tickled at her memory, as if she had heard it somewhere before, but she couldn't place it. She had a brief vision of marshmallows and crackers, but shrugged it off. "Where…?"

"Welcome to my place of business, The Lost And The Found. Few people ever make it here, and as you can see, few leave."

Chisame was thoroughly weirded out. "How did you know my name?" she asked warily. The bartender just smiled. Or did the closest equivalent to a smile anyway, little more than a light tightening of the muscles at the corners of his mouth, a slight quirk of the lips.

"It is printed on your bag," he said, pointing to the bag she still clutched. "Here, have something to drink while you wait," he offered.

"I'm underage, and I don't have any money," she said, growing even more alarmed.

"Do not worry, it is on the house," the man said as he placed a clear glass mug before her. She took a hesitant sip and was relieved to taste normal cola. She took another, longer look around the bar room. Other than a measuring glance from the woman in the dress and a friendly nod from the old man, there was no other reaction to her. The bartender brought out a rag and began cleaning mugs as the maddeningly familiar music continued.

Chisame admired the curtains that hid the windows for a moment before something else struck her as odd. Hadn't she gone down stairs to get here? If this place was underground, why did it have windows? Her curiosity piqued, she stood up and approached one of the curtain-clad windows.

"You should let it be," the bartender said.

"Let it be?" Chisame said as she gave the man an odd look. She realized with a start that he could be considered handsome. While thin, he didn't look unhealthy. His black hair was quite long for a man his age, but seemed to fit him as well as his black and white bartender's uniform, with a few strands hanging loose in front of his fine-featured face. He looked…regal, she supposed. That idiot Asuna would probably fall in love at first sight.

"Hodge, another drink," the old man said, breaking the seemingly eternal quiet of the room as Chisame sat back down on her barstool.

"Of course," the bartender said.

'Hodge. His name is Hodge,' Chisame thought to herself. 'Hodge.' Somehow, the name fit him perfectly as well.

Soon, Chisame's drink was gone and she stood up. "I have to go, there are some people after me," she said, wondering why she offered that information even as she spoke. How had they failed to find this place? They should have come in almost immediately after she entered.

"Very well," Hodge said, taking her empty glass and opening a drawer. He took something out, then tossed it into the dark corner at the far end of the bar. "Boy, show her the back exit."

A youthful voice drifted from the shadows. "Ok, boss. Come on, Hasegawa-san, it's time to go."

"Where are we going?"

"You're going wherever you're going. I'll stay here, thanks," the boy said. She could see him now, looking at her expectantly. Just a normal European kid, though his buttoned-up shirt and black slacks resembled Hodge's uniform more than something some brat would wear willingly. "Come on, then," he said as he opened a door and stepped out into a hallway.

She followed, and the familiar music was cut off as the door shut. It was an odd sensation, as if she had just been disconnected from something. A vague sense of loss grew the longer she walked in the hallway.

Finally, the boy stopped before a door at the very end and handed her something. "Here, use this key."

"This?" she said, wrinkling her nose at the ancient-looking key in her hand. It was like one of those they used in old castle movies, about three inches long with a big loop on the end where it would hang from a jailer's keychain.

The boy nodded and waited for her.

She pushed the key into the lock on the door and was surprised when it fit perfectly. She turned the key, and the lock clicked. "Where does this door lead?" she asked, hand tightened on the doorknob.

"Your destination. Go ahead," the boy said, so she opened the door on another alley. She almost laughed as she looked at the brick wall opposite. 'It opens to my destination, does it? I see, I let my imagination get the better of me. It's just a creepy bar in a basement and this is the back exit. Hah, stupid weird atmosphere, stupid weird bartender. Hodge, yeah right. Probably a fake name anyway—'

"Go on then, people are waiting for you, right?" the boy said. Chisame shot him an impatient look and stepped out into the alley, carefully stepping around a dead bird. The door clicked shut behind her, and she realized she still had the key.

"Wait, I forgot to…" Her voice drifted off halfway through the sentence. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and put them back on. No change. Where the door should have been was only a brick wall.

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Author's Note: Oooh, mysterious.


	15. Chapter 14

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 14

123456

Strange As Angels

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Content warning! Bad language and suggestive behavior are present in this chapter. Oh, and violence.

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Misa frowned as she looked at the figure sleeping on the bed. The guards had brought Yue in yesterday evening. Apparently, the girl had been given too strong a dose of tranquilizers, and had been in what amounted to a coma for quite some time following her capture. Her captors, obviously worried, had kept her under a tight watch with near constant monitoring until her condition improved. She had woken up for the first time since the kidnapping midday of the day before, and had only been sent to rejoin the cheerleaders when the doctors were sure she would be alright. Things had looked pretty bad for a while, there. Now the girl was dozing.

"Come on girls, you've got another roommate," the guard, Saburo, said as he opened the door. Misa and Sakurako stepped back as another man entered, carrying a dark haired girl thrown over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.

"Madoka?!"

"What's wrong with her? What did you do?!" Misa demanded.

"It will wear off in another ten hours or so, don't worry about it. We'll try to find another cot somewhere, just sit back and relax." At the cheerleaders' disbelieving looks, the man heaved an exaggerated sigh while his companion placed the unconscious girl on the bed beside the still-sleeping Yue, stepping carefully around the playdoh cats in the floor. "Ok, ok. I guess I can tell you this, they didn't tell me not to. They might not need you girls; if it's true, you'll probably be let go before too long."

"R..really?" Misa asked, the hope clear in her voice.

"Yeah, really," the man responded with an honest smile. Sakurako gave him a scrutinizing look, and he shrugged. "Just be good and don't try to escape, and you'll be released in a few more days, I think." He stepped close and spoke quietly so only the two girls could hear. "You don't want to draw their attention, my boss's boss isn't a very nice man," he said conspiratorially. "Just be good and they'll forget they even heard of you before too long."

----

The first thing Setsuna was aware of was a deep, throbbing pain all over the left side of her body. It pulsed with her heartbeat, burning. She was weak as a kitten as well, it was all she could manage to open her eyes and see the sterile white room she was in. Well, one eye. The other one was covered by the large bandage that covered half of her face. It was only when she tried to move to a more comfortable position that she realized she was heavily restrained.

Panic welled up, adrenaline was dumped into her bloodstream, and she thrashed violently against her bindings until a man rushed into the room and injected her with something, which only served to make her jerk around more wildly. Another injection was too much for her, however, and she quickly slowed as her energy melted away, the violence of her thrashing lessening until she was reduced to moving her head back and forth. That soon stopped as well. She fought off the cold feeling that crept over her extremities as long as she could, but it was too strong, and soon her eyelid drooped, and she was asleep.

----

Max flew down to the ground awkwardly and landed with a hard thud that made Jennifer wince. That must have been the twelfth time he had done that in the past hour, and it looked like it really, really hurt.

"I don't think these wings are very functional," he muttered as he took off the odd bowl-style helmet. For some reason, the pactio card only granted him this odd looking, toned down version of the armor on the card, along with what appeared to be bat wings. He still looked fearsome, only more 'ancient viking' and less 'soldier of hell'. Jennifer found the whole thing hugely amusing, especially since the toned down version of her armor basically amounted to a pretty dress that nevertheless offered much freedom of movement.

"Don't worry, you'll get it sooner or later, crow-san," she said, cracking a smile.

"Great, now you're doing it too," he complained as he rubbed his elbow, which had hit a rock on his most recent crash landing. While Jennifer had quickly worked out how to use the wings granted by her pactio, Max had only succeeded in learning how to glide. Oh, and also twenty-three different ways to hit the ground. Painfully.

"Maybe you should take a break?" Jennifer suggested. As amusing as it was to watch, she was starting to get hungry.

"I wish Setsuna were here," Max said darkly as he plopped down beside her. "She could tell me why I'm falling so much."

Jennifer nodded and looked at the false sky. "It's hot in here." Eva's resort was apparently always in 'summer mode', unless one went to the snowy mountain section. She didn't particularly like the heat, but…

"It's Eva-chan's resort, ask her about it," Max said with the sort of grin he saved for Jennifer alone. The heat didn't have any real effect on him.

Jennifer grimaced. "Ugh, no thanks. Have you gotten used to your new sword yet?"

Max summoned the sword that was a part of his artifact, an enormous german-style two-hander. He had seen similar swords called Zweihanders or Flamberges, but this one didn't quite fit the type; it was close, but the scale of it and the ratio of hilt to blade were too different. The blade was very wide for a sword of its size and longer than any functional two-hander he had ever seen. It was so long in fact, that he was forced to carry it the way Setsuna often carried Yuunagi, horizontally via a sling over his shoulder. He also had to make sure to be careful when he turned, lest he break too many lamps or wine bottles and get kicked out by Eva. The blade also had parrying hooks above the ricasso, and very wide, if somewhat plain, quillions. The whole thing was made of some black metal and was surprisingly light. It was his type of sword to be sure, but he still found the ridiculous length to be a bit unwieldy. Almost seven feet really was a bit much just for the blade, after all, a good two or three feet longer than what he was used to.

"I could use it as a spear, I suppose," he said aloud, bringing an amused grin to Jennifer's face. "Do you remember the look on Asuna's face when I summoned it that first time?" he asked.

"I remember," the brunette answered. "She was so upset that your sword was longer than hers that she challenged you to a duel on the spot."

"Ha! Yeah, angry redheads are not a thing to trifle with, that's for sure," Max said, flopping back on the ground to look up at the sky. "How are you doing with that…whatever it is?" he finally asked, referring to the odd lance-like weapon that had been granted to Jennifer.

"It's…unwieldy at best," she said truthfully, glancing down where the weapon lay at her side. "I want to use it like a spear, but with the way it's sharpened most of the way down, I don't know. I feel like I'm not using it properly." Roughly eight feet long, it was roughly the same length as Max's sword and was like no weapon she had ever seen. Half the length was taken by the handle, the other half by the fairly wide blade, which started with a wide crossguard at the base and came down to a sharp point at the tip. Unlike a proper spear, however, the edges were sharpened and shaped in a manner that allowed easy slashing and cutting. It was an odd weapon, and she didn't have any idea where to begin. Well, she had found one excellent use for it; when using the wings granted by Akira's pactio, she was able to swoop down like a hawk and skewer things, running the blade through the target to the crossguard and then jerking the weapon to the side, slicing the target in half. It was a fearsome weapon indeed, as long as she could learn to use it to its full potential.

"Abeat," Max said, unsummoning his equipment. "I'm beat. I think I'll go check on what's going on outside. Care to join me?"

"No, I'll stay here. I need to figure out how to use this," Jennifer said distractedly. The problem of her weapon just kept gnawing at her like a rock in one's shoe or someone mispronouncing 'Champagne' or 'Bordeaux'.

"Suit yourself. I'll be back later."

----

Chisame peeked out around the corner of the building warily. This was impossible! How had she ended up in Mahora?! Something was nagging at the back of her mind; countless shows where time travel and teleportation played important parts. Pocket dimensions, mysterious powers, the hidden world… She backed deeper into the alley and thought about what she knew. 'This is definitely Mahora, and the place I was before definitely was not.' Was it teleportation? She wasn't sure. It had to be, though...right?

She looked out around the corner again and found herself face to face with Akira.

"Chisame-san?" Akira asked, obviously surprised at seeing her.

"Okochi…you're you, right? Ah…nevermind. Come here," Chisame said, pulling Akira into the alley. When they were safely hidden, Chisame got right to the point. "Okochi, this is Mahora, right?"

Akira nodded, and Chisame slumped against the wall in relief.

"Everyone will be glad to see you back, Chisame-san, we thought you were kidnapped. What happened?"

"I _was_ kidnapped," Chisame snapped. 'Calm down, breathe. Okochi is a perfectly normal, calm, logical person. It's not like she's Baka Pink or anything. She'll be able to help me.' "…it's a long story," she finally said. "I don't want to repeat it, so I'll wait until everyone is together. What happened here?"

Akira frowned. "I guess you wouldn't know…the school was attacked."

"What?!" Chisame exclaimed. What had she missed?!

"Hundreds of robots attacked from the east entrance to distract the teachers while other people kidnapped students."

Chisame frowned. "Others were kidnapped too? Who? How many?"

"Asakura-san, Yue-san, Misa-san, Ku Fei, Konoka-san, Haruna-san, Setsuna-san, Sakurako-san...Nodoka-san and Madoka-san and you, too. Takane Goodman-san and Sakura Mei-san were also taken."

Chisame leaned back against the wall and took off her glasses in order to rub the bridge of her nose. "So many…I mean, I knew about Kugimiya, but the rest…"

"Did you see Madoka-san?"

"Yeah, she was with me," Chisame said thoughtfully, considering the information. So many! "We were in a van that wrecked; that's how we escaped. After that, she saved me from getting captured again; she pushed me into a store and ran the other way when they found us. I saw them putting her into another van after that…" Chisame trailed off. She was still disoriented from several days of running for her life and some sort of weird teleport that she just didn't understand. She would have to ask the brat about that later.

"Come on, Chisame-san. Let's find Negi-sensei."

Chisame nodded.

----

Roughly thirty minutes later, everyone was gathered around a table in Eva's resort. Eva silenced the usual chatter with a glare and looked at Chisame. "Ok. Spill it."

Chisame related the story of how the men had come into her room and injected the drugs, Madoka's unfortunately timed visit, the way they had awakened in the van, and their subsequent run through the countryside, followed hesitantly by her account of Hodge's bar.

"And that's what happened," she said.

The others members of Ala Alba and their friends fell into silent thought as Chisame finished her story.

"Hodge…that name is familiar," Eva said after a moment. "In any case, you have teleported over one hundred miles. Perhaps you are useful after all," Eva said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Let me see that key."

Chisame took the key from her pocket and handed it over.

Eva examined it for a moment. "This is not just a key…it serves as a focus for some sort of power. Teleportation perhaps…?" she trailed off.

Negi scrunched up his forehead as he concentrated. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, something he had read about teleportation that wasn't really teleportation. He had come across it in his research years ago.

Eva's look suddenly sharpened and she abruptly focused on Chisame.

Negi's eyes widened as he looked at his student.

"Alternate dimensions!" Negi shouted.

"Movement between dimensions," Eva said.

Chisame, startled, looked back and forth between them. "Wh-what?!"

Asuna was standing up, waving her arms around. "Wait wait, you guys mean like a slider, right? Chisame-chan is a slider?! That's so cool!"

Kotarou watched the unfolding drama with a bored expression. "So…?"

Negi stood up and started 'Lecture Mode'. "You see, there are theories that this Earth is not the only Earth, but that instead there are many Earths, side-by-side in a kind of—Ow!" Negi stopped and rubbed his head where Eva had smacked him.

"Everyone knows about theories like that," Eva said dismissively. She turned on Chisame again. "You. How did you do it?"

"I don't know," Chisame said. This was followed by silence as everyone looked at her. 'Gah, why won't they just shut up and let me get some sleep?! I'm exhausted…' "I don't know how it worked. It was just that one minute, the door wasn't there, and the next, it was."

Kamo jumped down onto the table from Negi's shoulder. "That would make sense, since her pactio ability is like that too. They say the artifact you get is related to your abilities and personality, after all. And her pactio does allow controlled movement between two different worlds," he said. Most of the others nodded thoughtfully.

"But I'm worried about Madoka-san," Negi said suddenly.

"Yeah," Kotarou said, leaning forward to prop his arms up on the table. "She's strong, she could've beaten anybody that tried to kidnap her, easy."

Asuna looked troubled. "Was she ok? She wasn't hurt, was she?" she asked Chisame, who shook her head. "Then why didn't she fight back?"

Eva sighed in annoyance and shook her head. "For some reason, she's afraid," she said, frowning as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. "Her control is terrible. She almost killed two men during the summer, one of whom is still in a coma. The idiot told me a few times that she's scared of killing people. Hmph. Fool."

Asuna nodded. "That's true; she was always very careful during sparring. I don't think she went at me full power even once."

"She never used more than a tenth of her power against you," Eva said disdainfully.

"That's so nice of her!" Negi interupted, clenching his fist as tears flowed.

"Idiot."

"What happened to the laptop computer?" Ayaka suddenly asked. She had been so quiet throughout the meeting that some people had forgotten she was even present. Chisame and Madoka had likely been kidnapped because they were in possession of the computer, which she herself had given to the glasses girl. Just her latest in a long line of mistakes.

"I gave it to Hakase," Chisame said. "She said she would look it over; she wanted to know why they wanted it so badly." 'Please, just let me sleep…'

"Oh…"

The questions and explanations continued for hours as theories and ideas were discussed and dismissed, and plans for a counter strike were made. The meeting ended after that and the participants scattered for training or research or, in Chisame's case, some much needed and well deserved rest.

----

Kazumi scrambled back in her small hotel room as Caesar approached, finally ending up against the wall next to the window. He approached in a partial crouch, his arms spread wide to prevent any attempts at escape. She sidestepped until she came to the corner, and realized with horror that she had just trapped herself as he approached quickly, blocking any chance of escape from the corner.

"You can't get away now, red." He narrowed his eyes and grinned, then leapt quick as a snake and seized her in a bearhug, squeezing tightly until she could hardly breathe. "Come on, make this easy on yourself. It won't be too bad," he said, the alcohol on his breath making her want to vomit. After a moment, he let up on the bearhug and she took the opportunity to reach down and grabbed a very sensitive place, squeezing until she felt something pop and squish out like a grape. The vile man dropped her on the floor and fell to his knees, clutching his groin with both hands as he let out a wail of agony. Adrenalin surging as she panicked, she kicked him in the face and ran to the door, which she threw open. She darted out into the hall and ran straight into Rav.

"I-I-I—"

"Are you trying to escape?" he asked with a scarily normal look on his face.

Kazumi was reminded of a snake about to strike as she recalled his warning on her first day, where he had basically told her escape means death. "N-no. C-Caesar, he tried…he…" She was backing up in spite of her best efforts.

Rav looked past her to where Caesar was trying to get to his feet, still clutching his groin. "I see. Come in for a moment," he said, pushing her back into the room.

"She broke my fucking balls," Caesar said in a pained voice as he looked at Rav. "She broke my—"

*BLAM* The gunshot was extremely loud in the small room, and it left Kazumi's ears ringing.

"So I see," Rav said as he put the small gun back into its hidden holster somewhere under his suit jacket.

Kazumi just stared at the dead man in the middle of the floor, then looked back at Rav. "What…?" While she had seen dead bodies during the incident a few months ago, she had never seen someone killed before her eyes, not like this. She felt her meager lunch welling up and ran to the room's tiny bathroom. When she returned, Rav gave her a bored look.

"Are you quite finished?"

Kazumi started to shake as she carefully avoided looking at what was left of Caesar, focusing instead on Rav's blank gaze. "Why did you…did you…"

"Do not misunderstand, I did not do this for your sake. He had been warned, and he disregarded that warning." After a moment, he amended that statement. "I require absolute obedience from those working under me. This is a dangerous business, and it wouldn't do to have rebellious troublemakers despoiling potentially valuable hostages."

Kazumi thought she saw something flicker in his eyes. Regret? Disappointment? She wasn't sure. Kazumi's eyes kept straying back toward the dead man, which she desperately tried to avoid. One look at the surprised expression on the corpse's face was plenty, she told herself. But…a sense of morbid curiosity and a reporter's need for information made her want to inspect the body, turn it this way and that, measure the temperature and check the reflexes to see if there was any life left. She fought back dry heaves while one of her hands snaked out and clamped onto Rav's expensive jacket.

He looked down at her hand and raised his eyebrows slightly. "I received a phone call this morning. Congratulations, you are now considered a semi-valuable hostage." He glanced back into the small room where the body lay. "Considering your new status, I don't believe I will leave you here," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose I will just put you in the room with the other girl," he said, grabbing her upper arm in an iron grip and pulling her through the doorway and down the dimly lit hall, soon stopping at another door in the corner. He pulled a keychain from a pocket and found the proper key, then unlocked the door, all while keeping one hand on Kazumi's arm. "Here we are," he announced as he pushed the door open and entered the room.

Kazumi blinked in the bright light from the open curtains and saw someone sitting on the edge of a bed.

"Asakura?!" Haruna asked in surprise.

"Paru?" Kazumi asked in disbelief. Tears started welling up at the sight of a friendly face as the horrific stress she had been under the past few days began to catch up with her.

Haruna took her hand and lead her over the bed, then put an arm around her in a friendly hug. "There, there, Asakura. It's ok…"

Rav exited quietly and locked the door, leaving the two girls alone.

----

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	16. Chapter 15

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 15

123456

If You Like To Gamble

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"Ooooii," the man said in a bored tone. "How long until those drinks are ready?"

"J-just one moment, sir," Takane replied, barely able to force out the 'sir' at the end. She took up the tray of drinks Mei handed her and walked over to the table, extremely conscious of the ridiculous getup they had put her in. The tight, revealing top was bad enough, but the miniskirt alone would have been enough to put her over the edge, had the safety of others not been riding on her actions. She made her way over to the table where the four yakuza members sat playing cards, barely managing to not stumble over her high heel shoes. "Here are you drinks, s-sirs."

The young leader picked up his drink and took a sip, deliberately looking her up and down over the rim of the glass. She frowned, and he grinned. The others took their drinks as well, and the leader waved her away.

"This is ridiculous," Takane grumbled to Mei when she returned to the small bar the yakuza had installed in the corner.

"It's not that bad," Mei started, but was silenced by an angry glare.

"You have no room to say that, dressed as you are," Takane said, pointing at Mei's bartender uniform's shirt and pants. "Why couldn't I have been the bartender?! This is fallout from the Mahora tournament, isn't it? It really is, isn't it? Everyone saw…" she trailed off.

"There there, onee-sama, it isn't that bad—"

"YOU DIDN'T GET STRIPPED BY SOME PERVERTED ROBOT AND HAVE YOUR PICTURES SPLASHED ALL OVER THE NET TO BE OGLED BY OTAKU AND HIKIKOMORI LOSERS! DO YOU KNOW HOW THAT MAKES ME FEEL? DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS MAIDEN'S HEART IS HURT BY SUCH THINGS?!"

Mei sweatdropped as the yakuza at the table grinned or laughed at the blonde girl's outburst.

----

Finally, the yakuza got tired of baiting Takane and sent the two of them off to the room they shared with Nodoka, who was always spared such things. Ku Fei was somewhere in the building as well, though they didn't know where. After she caused all that trouble the first day, they had shot her full of tranquilizer darts and strapped her into a straight jacket and tied her legs together at the knees and ankles and then taken her away. When asked what they had done to her, the yakuza members would laugh or say something about hanging her up on a coat hook. The three girls were always left mystified.

When the guards opened the door for them, Nodoka squeaked in alarm and quickly shoved something under a blanket. The guards either didn't see or ignored her reaction, and locked the door from the outside again as Mei sat on her bed and Takane climbed the ladder up to the top bunk, muttering about justice and maiden's hearts.

"How was it, Sakura-san?" Nodoka asked after a moment, averting her eyes as Mei changed into something more comfortable than the bartender uniform.

"It was the same. Everyone calls the leader Saga, but I think I caught another one calling him Jin, though. Is that enough…?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes, thank you Sakura-san," Nodoka replied as she pulled out her artifact, the Diarium Ejus. "Saga Jin," she said as she opened the book. She read for a moment and tried to hold back a giggle.

"What is it, Miyazaki-san?" Takane asked from the bunk above Mei.

"Um, it's nothing!" She actually laughed this time.

"Miyazaki-san?" Mei asked nervously.

Nodoka motioned for her to come closer, and showed her the diary entry.

'That Takane sure is fun to tease, her expressions are great,' the first section said, followed by a badly drawn picture of Takane's head, pointy teeth and oni horns prominent. 'Maybe it should be a bunny costume next? I wonder how she would react to that?' This was followed by Takane posing in a bunny costume with a tray of drinks and an even angrier face. 'I'll have to get Nobuo to go out and buy one, he said he can judge a girl's measurements with one glance, so it should be ok. Truly, a man to be feared.' There was a space after this, as if symbolizing a moment of silence, followed by one last sentence. 'Man, this is so much better than working up in Hokkaido, I love this place.' There was one last picture of Takane's angry face, this time embellished even more.

By this point, both girls were red faced with the strain of holding back a gale of laughter while Takane just lay on her bed, facing the wall and grumbling.

Nodoka just wished Ku Fei was with them instead of wherever she was. She had tried the Diarium Ejus on her several times already but Ku Fei thought in Chinese, so Nodoka couldn't read it. She was sure there was some function in the diary to translate, but she hadn't figured out how to do so yet. All she had to work with were pictures, most of which consisted of little more than Ku Fei making faces at some man in a suit…not a lot to go by.

Well, at least the guards were nice.

----

Mana approached Negi as he walked toward the dorm. "Negi-sensei, I have something to talk to you about."

"Yes, Mana-san?" Negi replied, his mind obviously on something else.

Mana showed him the note Chisame had brought with her when she arrived the day before. "This is from an old colleague," she passed it to Negi, who read through it.

"It's rather…lacking in everything, isn't it?" he asked curiously, looking again at the plain, short sentences and stark greeting.

Tatsumiya smiled. "It's written in code. Come with me," she said, leading Negi away from the dorm. As they walked the pathways around the campus, Mana explained. "I met Carter in Somalia, he was investigating torture allegations at the time. You may not realize it, but those involved in ngos are a fairly small group, and it is not uncommon to run into the same person or group of people in many different places around the world. In short, Carter owes me. And this is his chance to repay the favor I did for him, I think."

"Mana-san?"

"He sent a messenger to meet me last night at eight o'clock in a certain business in downtown Tokyo. The messenger will return every night for a week, but if I don't come at the right time, he will assume I was unable to do so and go down a different route," she said. After a moment, she continued. "This note says he has gathered specific information in regards to the missing students."

Negi's eyes widened. "I want to come with—"

"No." She explained her refusal after a moment. "If the messenger sees anyone but me, he will think it's a trick or an ambush. This is a very dangerous thing he is doing, Negi-sensei. He can't afford to take chances. However, I would like to take Kaede with me."

Negi thought for a moment. "Are you going to be all right, Mana-san?" She nodded. "Ok then, please take Kaede-san with you, but be very careful, I don't want any more of my students to be put into unnecessary danger," he said.

Mana blinked. Negi was being protective of her? How amusing. She felt the ghost of a smile cross her face. "No problem, Negi sensei. Don't worry, I will get that information."

----

Kaede and Mana stepped off the train in Tokyo and glanced around. "Akihabara, is it?" Kaede asked. Mana nodded. "Very well, Mana-dono. I will meet you here at ten." Mana nodded again, and the two separated.

Mana strolled around town for the next hour and a half before finally entering an out of the way café, where she ordered a cup of tea and waited. A few minutes later, an average looking young Japanese woman sat down opposite her and accidentally dropped her purse on the table, spilling its contents. Mana helped her gather them up, carefully pocketing the specially marked flash drive that had slid straight toward her. The two of them chatted like old friends about mundane things for a time. Mana paid her bill and strolled casually through the door and out into the street.

Now, it was up to Kaede to keep anyone from interfering with her delivery of the information.

----

Kaede kept to the shadows as she shadowed Mana to the café where the meeting would take place. She watched as another young woman entered and sat across from Mana, then diverted her attention to the two thugs in the alley below her. They had been there for some time, looking at the café. They were obviously up to no good, so Kaede made her way down to street level and crept up silently behind them. Two seconds later they lay on the pavement unconscious while Kaede went through their pockets. Foreigners, both of them; each had several forms of id bearing various names. She took what seemed important, stripped them of their clothing, and tied each one up in a rather embarrassing fashion before returning to the rooftops.

----

Roughly half an hour later, Kaede and Mana met up at the train station. Things had gone much smoother than Mana expected, and that was a source of worry. Two people had been watching, but Kaede had taken care of them. Both were carrying written orders instructing them to spy on certain members of a private military company. When they woke up in an alley tied up and without their clothing the next day, they would report to their boss. But Mana had the information and that was all that mattered right now.

----

Donner was frantic. There was a mole somewhere among his allies, and he had no idea who it could be. It wasn't Rav, that man was strictly business and would complete any job he took on regardless of outside influence. If someone offered him a bribe, he would kill them, then find a way to resurrect them so he could kill them again on general principles. Maybe that Yakuza sub-boss Saga? He was young to have such power, he could be looking for more. Or it could be Mochizuki. Then again, it could be someone in the mercenary group he had hired to do most of the dirty work. They tended to have all sorts of unexpected skills and skeletons in their closets, especially those who had been around for a while. There were perhaps a hundred battle-hardened men in the mercenary group…that could prove to be a problem if they turned on him. He quickly totaled the forces under his control. Already he had set people out to watch the various groups. He preferred to use 'watch' rather than 'spy on'…it simply sounded better. Several of them had failed to report in, and it bothered him. Perhaps he should have hired more competent people for that? No matter. They could be written off as acceptable losses.

In any case, he had roughly twenty people on hand at any one time who could be counted upon in a serious situation. Saga had at least a dozen on hand, maybe more, but could use his family name to gather a few hundred more in a day or two. Mochizuki had become leader of his clan after his father's death, so he could be quite powerful. The clan was very old and greatly respected, though small. He could gather a few hundred within a day, but others who were loyal or allied to his clan would step in as well without a doubt. Mochizuki and Saga were officially allies, though they could be played against each other under the proper circumstances. Rav…Rav was an unknown quantity. The quiet man was dangerous, and was skilled in everything he did. He recruited his men carefully, and troublemakers were summarily dealt with, sometimes ending up in a Chinese mine or a freighter heading for Singapore or Peru. Those who actually managed to make him mad, an extremely rare thing in and of itself, usually ended up dead.

For the first time, Donner began to have serious doubts about his ability to keep these people in line. The attack on the campus had been a disaster. Sure, several of the targets listed by Master Gaze had been acquired, but the sheer cost of the operation had taken almost everything he had on hand, and the cost of the lost and damaged robots would be astronomical, though he knew several methods to minimize the final tally. At least the various groups he had pulled together with his contacts didn't know the true nature of those they were guarding, or even why they were guarding them.

And then there was the issue of the inspectors from the Yukihiro Group. Someone had tipped off the Yukihiro Group on supposed 'shady dealings' by Kurogane Electronics, so he had had to fend them off for the past two days while he hid possible evidence and did all he could to misdirect them. It wasn't working very well, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the woman, Donnet McGuinness, at least, knew everything.

Yes, this was definitely a problem.


	17. Chapter 16

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 16

123456

Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right

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Everyone gathered around the table in Eva's resort. The table was covered in maps of various towns and cities as well as folders full of details on the people they would be facing. Negi stood as tall as he could, looking over the people around him. He hoped this information from Mana's contact was correct; if it turned out to be wrong, he didn't know what he would do with himself. "Max-sensei, Jennifer-san, Akira-san, you will go after the first group, which should include Konoka-san and Setsuna-san," he said, pointing out the place on the map. "Kaede-san, Misora-san, Cocone-san, you will travel with them until you reach your destination, where you will free the four hostages held by this Mochizuki-san. He should have a lot of people with him, so please be careful. Takamichi, Kotarou, you two will go where Haruna-san is being held, ok? Please be sure to check very well, they probably have more people than Haruna-san there. And finally, Asuna-san, Mana-san, you two will come with me, we will free Nodoka-san and any others who are held there."

"But Negi-kun, what about me?" Yuuna asked, annoyed at being left out.

"Myself as well, Negi-sensei. I want to be a part of this…" Ayaka said, looking more than a little hurt that she had been excluded as well. After learning of all this, she understood the reasons well enough, but that didn't stop the feelings of being excluded.

Negi looked a bit put out until Takamichi spoke. "Don't worry, Ayaka-kun, Yuuna-kun. You can come with the surveillance team with Chisame-kun and watch over things. It should be a valuable experience for both of you."

Eva broke in. "Chachamaru, you will also go. I want you to record everything so I can see my apprentices in action," she said, shooting an evil grin at Asuna, Kotarou, and Negi in turn. "If you disappoint me…" she said threateningly.

"Ah…ah, yes, Master," Negi replied quickly.

Takahata cleared his throat. "Well, let's get moving, shall we?"

Everyone nodded in agreement as they took last minute looks at maps and profiles and diagrams.

Ayaka looked around and sighed. She had hoped to be a part of the action, to help free her precious classmates from the villains that held them captive. Chisame took one glance at her and snorted. "Don't even think about it, Iincho. They're all way over your level. Yours too, Akashi," she added. "Dammit why do I have to be your babysitter?!"

----

Natsumi and Chizuru were waiting when Negi's group exited the woods.

"Kotarou-kun, come here a moment, please?" Chizuru asked politely.

Kotarou looked at the others and shrugged, then trotted over. "Yeah?"

Chizuru gave Natsumi a little push and stepped back.

"Ah…um…" Natsumi mumbled. "I…I hope you can find them, a-and…and…Good luck!" she shouted and then covered her face in embarrassment. 'What's wrong with me!?' she thought frantically.

Kotarou looked surprised for a moment, then tugged on Natsumi's arm until she lowered her hands, blushing furiously. He grinned confidently. "Don't worry about it, Natsumi-nee-chan. We'll get 'em all back, and I'll get a good fight out of it too!"

----

Ayaka took some time and wandered through the dorm, stopping here and there in the rooms belonging to the kidnapped students. So many were missing… It bothered her more than words could convey. As the class rep, she was in charge of them, it was her responsibility; and that was something she had been raised to take seriously. And…and they were her friends. Most of them had been in the same class for years, they knew everything about each other.

She sat down on Ku Fei's bed and looked around. The other girl had been in the process of changing her clothes when she had been kidnapped, and the shirt she had been planning on wearing was still lying on her bed. Ayaka straightened it out carefully. It was just a yellow shirt, but it fit the girl's personality so well that Ayaka found her eyes tearing up. She lowered her head to her hands and just sat there like that, trying to figure out what she should do.

----

Chisame snuck out behind the dorms and over to an unused storage shed she used from time to time to escape the insanity of her classmates. She took a quick look around to make sure no one had followed, then entered and shut the door behind her.

"What am I doing…?" she wondered aloud as she took the key to Hodge's Bar from her pocket. It was just the same old, unremarkable key. She looked around for something to try it on, and settled on a large portable broom closet. She put the key into a keyhole clearly not designed for it, and was only a little surprised when it fit perfectly. "Here I go," she said to herself as she gave the key an experimental turn. The lock clicked, but she didn't open the door; opting instead for a final look around. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside as the maddeningly familiar music greeted her ears.

"Welcome back, Hasegawa-san," Hodge said. He put the glass he had been polishing on the counter and looked at her. "How may I help you?"

Chisame gulped and closed the door behind her. "I want to know…" The other patrons looked up at her. "I want to know everything. About this key, about my power, about you and this bar…I want to know it all."

The old man in the back leaned forward. "Hey girlie, are you sure about that? There are some things you're better off not knowing."

The elegant looking woman tapped her pipe irritably on the bar. "He is right, you know. Once you understand…nothing will ever be the same." Her tone was that of someone recalling an ancient sadness.

The old woman by the window just shook her head resignedly and turned her attention back to her drink.

Chisame shrank back for a moment; her instincts were screaming at her to leave this place, to get out _immediately_, and her mind agreed. But something else…her heart and soul, maybe, was already ensnared in the dreamy and mystical feel of the room. It felt…it felt like coming home.

Chisame eyed each patron in turn, finding a sense of togetherness, friendship, perhaps a concept like nakama; as cheesy as it sounded in her mind, it certainly seemed to fit. She finally turned to the bartender. "I want to know."

Hodge nodded and closed his eyes. "So be it."

----

By the time the various groups of fighters left the campus on their way to their targets, Hakase had finished her modifications to the Rally program. "Now to see if this works…" she said as she began installation.

----

Gaze hung up the phone and looked blankly out through his office window. When his secretary entered the room, he spoke to her without turning around. "There are two types of people in this world, Akiko-kun," he said.

"Two types?"

"First, there are those who, when confronted with a window in a high place, look down at the world below and feel as though they have power. The second type, when confronted with the same window, look up at the sky and wish to fly," he said. "I am afraid that I started as the latter, and over time became the former."

The secretary thought about that for a moment. "Is that from anime…?" she asked.

"Nevermind, Akiko. I am in a dark mood today; I think I shall go for a drive. Cancel my afternoon appointments, I will be late coming back."

"Yes sir."

"Oh, and Akiko? Here, take this," he said, handing her a large, thick yellow envelope he took from his desk. "If I am not back by closing time tomorrow, open that envelope and follow the instructions inside."

"Mister Gaze…?"

"Don't worry about it. Just business instructions. Goodbye, Akiko-san," he said, the words sounding somehow final as he walked through the door.

The secretary looked worriedly at the folder she held and wondered what her boss was about to do.

----

"This is where we part for now, Max-dono," Kaede said as the train slowed to a stop. Misora grumbled as she rose from her seat, but Cocone remained silent as usual.

Max grinned his usual ugly grin at her. "Have fun out there," he said as he held out a hand.

Kaede matched his grin with a much better one. "Don't worry," she said as she clasped his hand. Max, Jennifer, and Akira watched as the three girls exited the train and stood on the platform. Cocone gave a little wave which Akira returned, and then the doors closed and the train started moving again.

"Don't worry, Akira-chan, you'll do fine," Jennifer said to the blue eyed girl. "You've had more training than either one of us had before our first missions."

Max nodded. "That's true. At the end of my first mission, I got lost in the bad part of town and some guy mugged me," he said with a grizzled laugh. "I was so scared of being mugged that I didn't even realize I could have chased him off or beaten him up with barely any effort. He didn't even have a weapon!" he said and laughed again.

Akira loosened up a little at the somewhat amusing mental image of some random guy actually trying to mug Max-sensei and watched the early afternoon scenery fly by outside the window. They were heading for some private manor in the countryside, and it would take several hours to reach the place, so they had a lot of time to kill.

----

Takahata and Kotarou sat in silence in the back of the car. Occasionally Kotarou snuck peaks at the teacher, looking away quickly when he thought he might be caught.

"What is it, Kotarou-kun?" Takahata suddenly said.

"Nothin," Kotarou replied. "Well, I was wondering about kanka, really. Just how strong _is_ it, anyway?"

Takahata smiled. "You remember the tournament, don't you?" He waited until Kotarou nodded. "The masters make what I am capable of seem like a single gust of wind in a typhoon."

The two fell into silence as Kotarou thought that one over.

----

Ayaka sat beside Chisame in the back of the van, facing Yuuna and Chachamaru on the other side. They sat in silence except for the steady *taptaptap* of Chisame on her laptop. Chachamaru sat in perfect silence, her eyes blanked out in sleep mode while Yuuna squirmed around almost constantly, unable to wait until they were in position.

About thirty minutes ago, Ayaka had gotten a series of text messages from her father that explained many things. The true nature of the Yukihiro Group, the connection between the Yukihiro Group and Mahora, and the truth about her potential and family history. It was quite stressful to realize just how much had been hidden from her until now, how her servants had been hand picked agents chosen by her father, and that it wasn't just Negi and Asuna's small group that was…'unique', but everyone in the class. In fact, a great many students throughout the school were not exactly normal. She looked again at Chisame until the girl distractedly asked what she wanted. Even Chisame-san was different, this quiet, angry girl with her nose buried in a computer screen.

Ayaka knew she would never look at another person the same way again, but would always wonder, 'Is that person one of _them_?'

----

Asuna looked at Mana, who glanced at her before turning back to the window. She glanced back at Negi, squished in beside her in the back seat of the car. The boy was entirely too quiet, and the serious look on his face didn't fit a ten year old brat at all. In fact, the boy was almost glaring. After a moment, he caught Asuna staring.

"We have to save them, Asuna-san," he said so fiercely that Asuna had to laugh.

"Don't worry, Negi, we'll find Honya-chan and anyone else that's there. No problem."

Negi turned his attention back to the seat in front of him, but stealthily grabbed Asuna's hand. She was surprised, but let him cling to it anyway. Soon, Negi, drowsy from the car ride, fell asleep and leaned on Asuna's shoulder. Asuna soon followed suit, her head leaning on Negi's.

When she was sure they were both asleep, Mana looked over at the two of them and made a slight smile. Even in his sleep the boy retained that serious expression, contrasting nicely with Asuna's blank, dazed and slightly drooling sleeping face. It seemed she needed him almost as much as he needed her.

Mana leaned back in her seat and gazed out the window.

----

"Here we are, de gozaru," Kaede said as she glanced at the long, low building. It seemed to be a standard shipping warehouse with a three story addition in the back. She checked her watch. Almost time. She turned to her companions, who nodded.

----

Max took point, weaving through the woods, dodging the occasional guard, and finding ways around the occasional obstruction. He finally settled down behind a shed just past the treeline, then motioned Akira and Jennifer forward.

"Here it is," he whispered. "Everyone remember the plan?"

Jennifer nodded and Akira answered "Yes."

"Ok, wait 'til the countdown's over."

"Ok."

----

Takahata and Kotarou stood under an umbrella, looking across the street at a rundown hotel in a rundown town.

"Ugh, what an ugly place," Kotarou growled. The whole town stank of garbage and neglect. This wasn't a place people lived, it was a place people died…and the stench of death was prominent.

"My sentiments exactly," Takahata said and took a long drag on his cigarette, dropping what was left on the cracked sidewalk and snuffing it out with his shoe. He checked his watch. "Almost time," he said indifferently.

Kotarou smiled as he felt his adrenalin flowing again. It had been far too long since he had a serious fight. This would be fun!

----

Negi wanted to rush up to the huge warehouse and blast his way in, but Asuna held him back.

"Hey, hey Negi, what are you doing? We can't go until it's time, remember? Everyone has to go at the same time so they don't have any warning!"

Mana finished checking her guns and glanced at her watch. "Two minutes, Negi-sensei."

Negi finally calmed down enough to listen to reason. "Nodoka…" The girl had confessed to him but he had put her off, neglecting to give her any sort of answer. It was shameful, and he found his face turning red in embarrassment at the mere thought of his behavior. Even if he was too young to really understand such things, he knew she deserved a real answer at the very least. "We'll save you, I swear it!"

Asuna's amused expression made him turn red again. "Ho ho, look who's a big hero now, huh? How much more time, Tatsumiya-san?"

"Thirty seconds. Ready?" The other two nodded.

----

Natsumi sat on the couch in the dorm room, listening to the sounds of students returning for the night. "Do you think they'll be ok, Chizu-nee?"

The other girl held her hand reassuringly and nodded.

----

Ayaka nervously watched the monitor. The video feed came from tiny cameras and microphones that each member of the attacking groups had been equipped with beforehand. The monitors were separated into groups, but Ayaka only had eyes for Asuna's screen, which currently showed Negi-sensei.

"Aw, don't worry Iincho! It'll be ok," Yuuna said as she clapped the other girl on the back.

Chisame looked up in annoyance, then turned back to her discussion with one of the techs. Chachamaru was currently interfacing with the computer system and was unavailable for comment.

"They'll bust in, beat up the bad guys, and save everybody, it'll be fine."

Chachamaru's eyes opened. "Operation commencing in ten seconds. Ten, nine, eight, seven—"

Ayaka almost screamed in frustration when Asuna's view turned away from Negi and back to the warehouse.

"—three, two one. Commencing operation."

----

"It's time, let's go!"

----

----

----

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Author's Note: Aaaaand…a cliffhanger. How was that? Was that a nice buildup? Are you tense now? Should I drop the story for two months before I post the next chapter? Nah, I wouldn't do that.

Nakama: If you've watched much anime, you should know this. It refers to people who share a connection deeper than just friendship; it's something more like war buddies, or people who grew up together…that sort of thing.


	18. Chapter 17

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 17

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Here I Go, Playing The Star Again.

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Language and violence warning!

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---

---

A young girl wandered around on the third floor office area of a certain warehouse. With dark red hair and expressive eyes, anyone could tell she would grow into an attractive young lady.

The man guarding the door grinned at her as she approached, and fished a pack of gum from his pocket. "Hey, ojou. Want some gum?"

The little girl smiled winningly. "Thank you, Akihiko-kun," she said graciously as she took the piece of gum the man offered. She sat down beside his chair and leaned against the wall as she chewed it. "Are they being nice to you?"

Akihiko looked confused for a moment. "The girls in there? Yeah. They've been talking to each other constantly the past few days, but that's about it. Why do you ask?"

"Because," the ten year old girl said as she stood up, put her hands on her hips and puffed her chest out, "They're not allowed to be mean to you! Only me an' Hiro-nii can do that. If they pick on you, just let me know, and I'll teach 'em a lesson!"

Akihiko grinned at that. The girl was just like her mother. It was a shame her mother wasn't around to see her now. Kagami-chan was second in line to run this group; if something happened to her brother Hiroaki, who was only just out of his teens, she would lead. Her mother and father had both been victims of a rogue faction of the Saga Group. It had almost erupted into war until the younger Saga, Saga Jin, had been brought in from Hokkaido. The man had promptly rooted out those responsible and sent their heads to the Mochizuki Group, averting much bloodshed and cementing the two groups as firm allies. Jin-san had gone back to Hokkaido after that, but Akihiko had heard rumors that he had returned recently. If something had gone wrong badly enough to bring in the Hokkaido Gunman, as he was called, something big was about to happen, and he had a feeling it had something to do with those girls locked in the storage room.

"Ojou, why don't you go visit the boss? I'm sure he'd like to see you."

Kagami-chan looked seriously at the older man. "What's wrong Akihiko-kun?"

"…there's a smell in the air tonight that I don't like. Call it a hunch, but…I think it would be for the best if you were with your brother right now."

"A hunch, huh? Ok, I'll go. But remember what I said! If those mean girls pick on you…"

Akihiko grinned and raised his hands. "I know; come get you, right?"

"Right!"

"Ok ojou. Go and play with the boss, I'm sure he'd like the company."

"Ok!" the girl said as she scampered off.

Akihiko stood up and checked his guns and his blade. He didn't think he'd need them, but…like he had told Kagami-chan, it felt as though there were something in the air tonight, and he preferred to be safe, rather than sorry.

----

Kaede approached the warehouse stealthily and peeked through one of the dirty windows. Amongst the stacks of crates, four men in rumpled suits stood around a table, talking and looking at papers. She motioned at Misora and Cocone, and they came to her position quickly.

"How is it?" Misora whispered.

"Four inside, de gozaru. There will be others, so be careful. Do you remember your roles?"

Misora and Cocone flashed a dual thumbs-up, and Kaede's perpetual grin widened. She led them around the building to a side door, whose lock she picked. She took a quick look through the door's window, but could see nothing but crates. The lack of a clear line of sight bothered her, but there was no going back; she opened the door and slipped inside.

Cocone followed Kaede, and Misora was the last one in. She tried to pull the door shut, but it must have been sagging because the upper corner smacked into the doorframe loudly, drawing a startled shout from somewhere deeper into the warehouse. There wasn't even time for the three girls to get to cover before three yakuza ran around a stack of crates. One of them started shouting.

"Intruders! Hit the alarm! We have three—_oof_." The man was cut off midway as Kaede's knee impacted his stomach. Kaede whipped around and took the second man on the chin with her elbow before the first had even fallen, and then kicked the third man in the face as she spun, building on the momentum of the elbow strike, effectively silencing all three in the space of two seconds. It wasn't enough to stop the alarm, however, which started blaring through the building almost immediately. People were shouting and yakuza started swarming around the crates, so Kaede turned to Misora and Cocone. "Check the offices. If I don't find them down here, I'll be right up, de gozaru."

Misora nodded as she looked around, trying to find the offices.

Kaede turned to face the incoming yakuza and heard a quick "Adeat" followed by an "I'll go on ahead" from Misora, who grabbed Cocone and was through a door on the other side of the room in an instant.

The ninja girl, now surrounded by a dozen yakuza, give or take a few, stepped into the middle of the open space and grinned. "What are you waiting for, an invitation?" she asked.

----

Misora shut the door behind her, careful to avoid slamming it, and heaved a sigh of relief as she leaned against the wall beside it. "Whew, that was bad, eh Cocone?"

A door down the hall creaked as somehow started to open it, so Misora grabbed the shorter girl before she could respond and used her artifact to dart down the hallway and up the stairs on the other end to the third floor.

"Hey, what was that?!" someone shouted below as she opened the door and entered the third floor.

"That sure was close, wasn't it?" Misora asked. She grinned at Cocone when the girl tugged her sleeve.

"Misora, look."

"Huh? What is…it…ah crap…" Before them in the hallway stood five tough looking yakuza. "Ah…"

One important looking man strolled up, hands in his pockets, easily taking on that casual 'I'd kill you so much as look at you' look that so many street punks tried and failed to emulate. "Who are you?" he asked roughly.

Misora gulped. She could see part of a tattoo peeking up over the collar of the man's shirt. Yep, real yakuza, all right. Crap.

"We are just passing nuns, looking for a place to stay out of the rain?"

The man cocked an eyebrow; his expression stated clearly that he didn't believe her.

"It's true! Right Cocone?"

The shorter girl posed dramatically and gave a thumbs up. "Yes!" she said in horrible, heavily accented English.

"Yeah…" another yakuza said.

"Put 'em in with the others," the important looking man finally said. "I'll tell the boss. Be quick about it, Hideki, Goro. The rest of you too, make sure they don't escape."

----

Kaede slipped a punch, dodged the next, and caught the next, which she twisted into a hammerlock as she pulled the man in front of her to stop his ally from firing his gun. She shoved the captive man into the gunman and kicked another man coming in from the side flush on the chin. He staggered a few steps and collapsed, but she was already disarming another man who carried a knife, and then there was a sudden explosion of smoke, and four Kaedes burst through it and started to fight the remaining yakuza while the real Kaede stuck to the shadows and made her way across the room to the door Misora and Cocone had disappeared into.

The door opened on an L shaped hallway, with the door being on the bottom of the L. A man was milling around in the hallway, apparently confused. He held a gun, but seemed to regard it as something that might bite him if he took his eyes away. Kaede stepped back into the shadows in the unlit lower end of the hallway and waited as he walked toward the door. When he paused with his hand on the doorknob, she came out of hiding and clamped an arm around his neck, dragging him kicking and gasping for air back behind some boxes, where she bound and gagged him.

The only warning she got for what happened next was the bound man's surprised expression as he looked at something behind her.

Kaede rolled to the right, barely avoiding the vicious knife thrust that would have taken her in the shoulder. She came up with a kunai in each hand and faced the attacker. He was an older man, probably in his mid thirties; slightly graying hair, an amused gleam in his eyes, and a horrible, twisted mess of scar tissue across his neck the front of his neck. He moved with the grace of a dancer as the two circled, trying to get an advantage. After several feints from both sides, he made a gravelly sound that she realized after a moment was laughter, and grinned at her.

"A worthy opponent, de gozaru," Kaede said, her own grin widening as the man nodded. She feinted…no response. Again, no response. He feinted, then rushed forward in almost the same moment, taking her off guard. Her kunai went flying and his knife skittered off across the floor as each struck the other's knife hand. He grabbed her left arm in an attempt at a throw, but she grabbed his other arm, blocking it. They struggled for a moment in silence, and sweat beaded on both fighters' foreheads as each tried to overpower or overbalance the other.

They circled again, arms locked, and Kaede bumped into a box, knocking her off balance. The scarred man took advantage immediately, bearing down on her in an attempt to drive her to the floor. Kaede fought back, and then abruptly went limp, falling back and rolling, throwing the man into the wall behind her with a heavy thud. She was up again in an instant and kicked him in the chin, stunning him. She wasted no time and had the man bound and gagged in seconds.

Kaede stood up and headed for the stairs to the second floor but stopped her advance when three more yakuza came out of an office at the end of the hallway. They stopped dead when they saw her. Kaede, for her part, grimaced and would have cursed under her breath if she hadn't been so good natured.

The leader, upon being urged by the other two, took a step forward. "Don't move!" he said, raising a pistol.

Kaede sighed. Every time…every time this sort of thing happened. She casually raised her right hand and produced a kunai from nowhere. The three men looked at her warily as she made the small knife dance expertly across her fingers, then, with a quick flick on her hand, buried it several inches deep into a wooden support beam directly behind the leader's head.

"Ah…ah…um…s-stop that! Don't move!"

"Are you sure about this? It is your choice, de gozaru," Kaede said as she produced eight more kunai. She took a threatening step forward and the three men stepped back, sealing their fate. She herded them into an empty room and tied them up, then headed for the second floor.

----

Two of the yakuza directed the two student nuns to the final room on the third floor and waited while the important looking man dug out the keys. "Ok, here we go," he said as he unlocked the door. Misora looked into the room and saw none other than the cheerleaders and Yue. And a _lot_ of playdoh cats.

"Misora?!"

"It's not me! I'm just a wandering nun looking for a place to stay out of the rain." Cocone sighed wearily at the poor act Misora put on.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"So, what's with all the cats?"

Yue, Madoka, and Misa all looked at Sakurako, who smiled sheepishly. "Well, you see…"

----

Kaede fought her way halfway through the crowded second floor before she heard shouts and footsteps pounding up the stairs behind her. 'It appears I was too slow, reinforcements are coming, de gozaru,' she thought. And these weren't normal yakuza, either. Some of them hadn't even been surprised at her clones or other tricks.

She brought out her shadow clones and the hallway was instantly filled with chaos as sixteen Kaedes fought the few remaining yakuza while she surged past them.

She knew she would never make it when she climbed to the third floor, however. Exhausted from battling dozens of yakuza and holding back in an effort to not kill them, not to mention all the shadow clones that had been summoned and destroyed…it had taken almost everything she had to get this far. And now over a dozen more yakuza were arrayed before her, and not a weak-looking one among them. She set herself for one more battle when suddenly something massive slammed into the door at the far end of the hall, startling everyone present. She suddenly recognized a certain feel in the air, one that she associated with Negi-sensei's use of magic. Surely not…?

"What the hell?"

A young man opened a door and stepped out into the hallway. "Someone check those girls! Hey, Akihiko, you're supposed to be guarding them, go check it out."

An important looking man, apparently Akihiko, looked back and forth between Kaede and the young man. "On it."

When Akihiko reached the door and stuck his key in the lock, an odd thing happened. Much to everyone's surprise, the door was blasted off its hinges in a spray of splinters and scraps of wood, and Madoka burst through, followed by a cascade of living playdoh cats that ran through the hallway, climbing all over the yakuza and in general causing mass confusion. Misa and Sakurako were out next, followed by Yue, Misora, and Cocone. Kaede was down the hallway in an instant, kicking the window from its frame to smash on the ground thirty feet below.

She turned to Misora. "Misora-dono, get Cocone-dono and Yue-dono. Madoka-dono, you help Misa-dono, I will get Sakurako-dono." Misora heaved a weary, much put-upon sigh while Madoka looked nervous. "Do not worry, Madoka-dono," Kaede said. Remember your training, you have the ability, de gozaru." She didn't give Madoka any chance to argue, instead picking up Sakurako and leaping out the window before anyone could react. Misora summoned her artifact and grabbed Cocone and Yue, one under each arm, and followed Kaede, leaving Madoka and Misa alone in the hallway with the yakuza and cats.

A young redheaded girl, perhaps ten, ran out into the hallway, looking around frantically. "Hiro! Hiro-nii!"

The young man from earlier shouted something from under a living pile of playdoh cats, but his voice was too muffled.

Totally freaked out, the little girl ran up to Madoka as she leaned out the window and grabbed her arm. "You can't leave! Big brother will get in trouble if you do!"

Madoka, not knowing what to do, looked at the girl helplessly, then glanced pleadingly up at Misa, who came to her rescue.

"I'm sorry, but we have to go now. Here, let me ask you something. What's your name?" Misa asked, kneeling in front of the child.

"I'm Kagami, who are you?"

Misa smiled, the little girl reminded her of herself at that age. "I'm Misa, and I'm a Magical Girl," she said, smiling as the girl's eyes widened. "Tell you what, would you feel better if you could have one of these little cats forever?" Kagami's eyes went really wide as she nodded emphatically. "Ok, let me see if I remember how to do this right," the cheerleader said as she thought for a moment, trying to recall what Yue had been teaching her the past few days. "Ok, I think it was something like this," she said as she reached down and took up a playdoh cat that was seated on the floor, cleaning itself. It was supposed to be a calico, she supposed...if calicos were blue, red, and yellow, anyway. She enclosed it between her hands for a moment, muttered something that sounded suitably magical, and passed the cat to the girl. "He should stay with you forever now," Misa said, smiling. "I've got to go now, be good, Kagami-chan!"

"Ok, I will!" the girl said happily as she held the cat up high.

"Come on, Madoka, let's go!" Misa said as she jumped at the other girl, forcing Madoka to catch her bridal style.

"I don't know about this," Madoka said as she stumbled around under the weight of the other cheerleader. Nevertheless, she went to the window and looked out at the ground so far below. "I really don't want to do this…" she said as she strengthened her legs with ki. She saw the others on the ground below, waving at her to jump.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap…"

"Come on, Madoka, let's go!" Misa said, putting her arms around the other girl so Madoka wouldn't accidentally drop her.

Madoka put her foot on the bottom of the window and jumped out into the rain-soaked night. For a moment, it seemed as if she was flying…but then gravity took over and she landed awkwardly on her feet thirty feet below, slipping on the slick and muddy ground and dropping Misa into a puddle.

"My hero," the long haired cheerleader said sarcastically as Madoka helped her up.

"We need to go," Kaede said, motioning for everyone to follow.

----

Meanwhile, seventy miles to the north…

----

Max left the cover of the trees and darted across the lawn to crouch against the back wall of the sprawling single-story manor next to a small porch, then waved to Jennifer and Akira, who both made it across without incident. They made their way to one of the back doors just as thunder rumbled and the first spatters of rain fell.

Max took a quick glance through a window, then turned back to his companions. "Ok, here's the plan. Akira, you check the first room to the left, I'll check the first room to the right, and Jennifer will stay in the hall to watch for any guards. Don't take any unnecessary risks. Everyone got it?" The other two nodded their heads. "Ok, here we go," Max said, quietly opening the door and slipping inside.

The hallway they stepped into continued for some distance ahead before ending in a wall. Several other halls branched off on both sides, and there were a few closed doors. Luckily, the hall was empty. Max motioned the others toward their positions, and entered the door on his right.

It was a large kitchen, thankfully empty, so he stepped back out into the hallway and found Akira coming out of the room she had just checked. She shook her head to indicate the room was empty, so the duo moved further down the hallway.

They rejoined Jennifer and continued down to the first intersection. A quick look revealed only a startled maid, who Max sent running for the back door. This time Jennifer went down the hallway to the left, while Max sent Akira forward to look out for enemies.

Max went down the short hallway to the right, opened the door, and stepped inside, finding himself face to face with five startled bodyguard-types seated around a table. It looked like they had been playing poker.

"Shit."

----

Akira stepped softly forward, peering carefully around the corner near the end of the hallway. It was a very long hallway, and judging by the windows on the far end, it crossed all the way across the manor house. It was also empty.

She took one last look and headed over to some rooms they hadn't checked yet. The first one was empty; it appeared to be some sort of waiting room or something, she wasn't sure. She moved on to the next, and the next, and the next, all were empty. She looked carefully around the hallway again…still safe.

She crossed to the other side of the hall and tried the first room on the left, where she found a startled butler changing his clothes. She squeaked an apology and left quickly. The next room was empty, and the next and the next. She continued along toward the next door, not paying attention to the wall on her right until she realized it was gone, replaced by an empty space.

"Hey! Who are you? Stop where you are!"

Akira jumped and found herself facing three men in crisp black suits in a large entry room, complete with double doors and gawking servants. She had a disturbingly violent urge to blast them through the far wall, but forced it aside in horror. But…Max-sensei had said there must be no escape for the bodyguards and security, they must be neutralized first.

"Hey girl, I told you to freeze," one of the men said threateningly.

Akira gulped and reached out hesitantly for her water as the three approached.

----

Jennifer opened the door to her left and cursed aloud when two men faced her.

"Activate the contract for fifteen seconds for Jennifer Minindry!" It was an old trick, that, and one which she was quite familiar with.

She leaped forward and smashed a sagitta magica-charged fist into the first one's unprotected chin, knocking him backward out of his chair. She followed up with a spinning kick that knocked the second man down. She was on him in an instant, wrapping him in a brutal choke hold until he fell unconscious. By the time she had the second man down, the first was just starting to get his bearings back…apparently he wasn't a normal security guard. She jumped in with a kick to the gut that sent him sprawling, then drove her fist into the back of his head, the same move Max had used with such brutal efficiency in the Mahora martial arts tournament months ago. She shivered when the short contract boost wore off barely half a second later…she had cut it close.

Jennifer wasted no time in cutting strips from the coat one of them wore, which she used to tie and gag both men. She walked out into the hall and bumped into a third man who had come to investigate the noise. She dispatched him with a sharp punch to the throat that left him gasping for air on the floor and dragged him into the room as well, giving him the same treatment as the other two. Luckily, he was much more lightly built than the other two had been; otherwise she wouldn't have been able to move him.

As she exited the room for the second time, a loud explosion rocked the house and she began to smell smoke as several people screamed and others shouted. 'So, Max has made contact,' she thought. Well, Max could take care of himself, it was Akira she was worried about. A loud shout from somewhere toward the front of the house caught her attention, so she headed that way, checking each room as she went.

----

Max stared for a moment, then grinned wickedly. He hadn't expected anything like this! The man had batted aside his fire-based sagitta magica like an old pro…he had had no idea that there would be anyone like _this_ here. His opponent, however, was less than pleased.

The man inspected the charred sleeve of his suit jacket and shot a warning look at Max while wind and rain blew in through the hole in the wall behind him and his comrades all lay around the room, moaning in pain. Apparently, the sagitta magica had hit a gas line or something.

"You," the man said, pointing at Max, "You are going to answer for that," he said seriously as he approached.

Max tackled him straight through the smoldering hole in the wall.

The two rolled around in the mud outside, kicking, punching, and gouging, struggling for the upper hand. Max was far stronger, but the other man was like a weasel, slipping out of his grip before he could get anything done.

The man rolled off and drew a small revolver from an ankle holster, but Max wasted no time and created a mini fireball that detonated on the handgun, which exploded in a flashy display of flying shrapnel as all six rounds detonated at once. The man cursed like a fishwife as he clutched his mangled hand and tried to blink away the temporary blindness brought on by the flash. Max's side kick took him flush on the chin, snapping his head up to stare blankly at the sky. The man stood there a moment like that, rain falling in his face, then fell to his knees and finally flopped down on his face.

Max climbed back through the hole in the wall and rendered the injured guards unconscious, then opened the door and came face to face with none other than Jacob Donner, the owner of this estate and the man behind the kidnappings.

----

To say that Donner had been having a bad day was an understatement, to say the least. His boss Gaze had said some terrifying things over the phone this morning. Things about cleaning up his mess and taking responsibility for one's own actions…things that had a ominous sound, coming from someone like Gaze.

And then one of his men, Genji, had phoned him to say that the inspectors from the Yukihiro Group had found something that didn't add up in the account books, and would like to arrange a meeting with him at his earliest convenience.

That was bad enough; one way plane tickets to foreign countries were considerably cheaper than a round trip, but the ridiculously short timetable in which to flee made things such as putting his affairs in order virtually impossible. He hated to leave Genji behind as well; the man was a genius at getting people to actually _work_. But…he could find a new pet taskmaster elsewhere. It was annoying, but no worse than having a car wrecked or stolen. He could find another one any time.

He was snapped out of these heavy thoughts when the house was rocked by an explosion and several screams and shouts.

"What on Earth…?" he said aloud as he closed his briefcase and pocketed his car keys. He opened the door of his study and peaked out into the hallway. It was deserted, so he reentered the study and quickly stuffed several handfuls of important papers into his briefcase before throwing whatever wouldn't fit into the fireplace. He used to the poker to make sure everything was burned, then went through a hidden door in the wall and cut through his library, and came out into another hallway, just in time to see perhaps the biggest man he had ever seen in his whole life.

Donner was so surprised he might have screamed or dropped his briefcase if he hadn't frozen in place like a deer in the headlights. A little less than a foot taller than himself, the man was _huge_…! And he was coming straight for him.

Donner broke from his paralysis, turned, and ran.

----

When Donner took off for the back door at a run, Max followed. However, just before the American could reach him in the hallway, Donner managed to topple a large cabinet full of expensive crockery, blocking the hallway and forcing Max to slow down and climb over it while he escaped through the back door. By the time Max made it through the door, the sound of a car starting reached his ears and he spotted the other man speeding out of a garage in a vintage Italian sports car, wheels spinning on the wet cement. There was no point in trying to catch him at this point, so Max slowed to an aggravated stop. "Fuck…Fuck!"

The manor house behind him rattled and he heard screams, so he hurried back inside to help his teammates.

----

"Water Jet!"

Akira shot the first man all the way across the room into the far wall with a hard blast of water, but he rose shakily to his feet when she released it. She looked around worriedly, hoping for Jennifer or Max to come help, but neither appeared. It seemed she would have to do this herself.

The servants had fled, but the three men before her seemed to know what they were doing.

"Give up, girl. This is a big mistake you're making," one of them said as he edged around, trying to outflank her.

Her mind raced as she tried to work out a plan. All the careful planning and training she had undergone under Max-sensei and Jennifer-san disappeared, and she was left with nothing but a memory of a sword. Remembering something she had practiced with Max-sensei, Akira calmed herself as best she could and reached inside herself for her inner calm, for her water, finally forming a blade whose edges she dulled instinctively. She still wasn't ready to have blood on her hands; she didn't think she ever would be, honestly, and hoped that it would stay that way. She carefully avoided any thoughts of Oscar Marshall…that incident hadn't seemed real, she hadn't been aware at the time, just floating in the water and letting it make the decisions.

If she killed another person…

She shuddered and realized she had let herself get too distracted when one of the men grabbed at her arm. She jerked back and barely avoided him, whacking him on the side of the head with the water sword she had created as he backed away. It didn't seem to have any effect. She realized with a start that the man she had slammed into the wall a moment ago was casting a spell, so she threw up a quick barrier that almost faltered under the lightning strike that hit it. Panic roared to life when she remembered her elemental interactions, and the barrier began to waver and falter; lightning could ride on water easily, doing serious damage to a water mage in an instant if the proper guidelines weren't followed. The storm raged outside, and now she had an enemy in front of her and one each on her left and right. An explosion shook the house and set her adrenalin pumping even harder.

On edge, she leapt to the side toward one of the men trying to flank her and got behind him. She pulled his head back by his hair with one hand and held her water sword at his throat with the other as she faced the other two. "If you come any closer, I'll k-kill him!" she shouted.

"You're in over your head, girl," one of them said menacingly as he drew a long, wicked-looking knife while the other began preparing another spell.

"Akira-chan! You're not ready for that yet, remember your training with Negi!" Jennifer shouted from the entryway behind Akira.

"Jennifer-san…!" Akira said, turning her attention away from her targets and toward her friend.

What happened next seem to occur in slow motion.

Jennifer shouted "Look out!" and reached toward her, her eyes wide in fear. Akira, trusting to some buried instinct, turned and ducked in the same movement, narrowly avoiding a vicious swipe by the man with the knife. She felt herself shove her captive into the floor face-first and swung her sword up in a ruthless arc, saw it cut through flesh and blood, bone and tendon as if they were made of butter. Saw the man's forearm go flying, hand still clutching the knife. And now the tip of her sword was driving toward the man's face, and he was holding up his arms to ward her off as if he still had two of them, and she couldn't stop, she couldn't stop…!

"Jennifer, take care of it!"

Max tackled her to the ground, driving her breath away.

Akira lay on the floor under Max, gasping for breath and struggling, trying to get away from anything, everything. She had been about to kill that man…! Again…she had almost killed another person!

"Akira! Akira, look at me!" Max said, grabbing Akira's head and forcing her to meet his gaze. "Akira, _look at me_!" he demanded, trying to snap her out of her panic. And, for a wonder, it worked. The girl's struggling slowed, her eyes stopped moving wildly and she started to get herself under control.

"Come on, get up, Akira, we're not done yet," Max said not unkindly as he got to his feet and offered her a hand up.

Akira looked for the three men she had been fighting, and was surprised to see that Jennifer-san had somehow managed to subdue them, and was even now putting a tourniquet on the stump of the knife-man's arm.

"We've wasted too much time, we have to find them now!" Max said.

Jennifer nodded. "Stick with me, Akira," she said. "Let's go."

Room after room after room was empty or recently vacated, but none showed evidence of containing any hidden secrets until they found a room guarded by two men who were quickly dispatched. Inside, they found a trap door with a ladder that led down to a narrow hallway below. Max remained on ground level while Jennifer and Akira climbed down.

Once down the ladder, Akira found herself in a narrow, badly lit hallway with gray cement walls and white tile floors. The hallway continued for roughly twenty feet before opening up into a larger, well lit room. Even from her current position at the foot of the ladder, she could see what looked like a heavy steel cell door with a tiny window. A bit of a thrill went through her at that. This was it…! Some of her classmates were here, locked up just a few feet away…!

"What is it now, Kimura?" a man asked from somewhere ahead. She kept her silence as Jennifer crept forward.

"Kimura? What's going on?" the man asked sharply as he came around the corner. Akira had a brief glimpse of a young man, probably just out of high school, and then she blasted him back against the far wall with a jet of water, and held him in place while Jennifer cleared the room and then secured the man Akira was holding.

The two of them checked a bank of monitors that seemed to show the interior of the cells lining the wall behind them. Only two cells were occupied, cell two and cell five, by Setsuna and Konoka, respectively. Akira wasted no time and shot a spear of water through the door locks of both cells, and freed her classmates. They retrieved the tired girls' belongings from a safe. Setsuna, though weary, hurt, and bone-tired, gripped Yuunagi fiercely when Akira passed the sword to her, and Konoka refused to let go of her Secchan's arm.

Altogether, the trio of Max, Jennifer, and Akira had wasted far too much time, and police sirens were wailing from the distance by the time they got Setsuna and Konoka outside and into the safety of the trees.

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Author's Note: Yeah…sorry this chapter was late. I realized it needed what amounts to a complete rewrite, and I'm still not happy with it. But, eh…that's just how it is, sometimes. Anyway, that's two rescue groups down, there are two to go. Keep reading!

As a side note, Kaede's little 'dono' speech seems clunky to me…oh well. If it's that or totally dropping a major part of her speaking style, I'll settle with the occasional clunkiness any day of the week.


	19. Chapter 18

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 18

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There I Go, Turn The Page.

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Takahata and Kotarou nonchalantly approached the door to the hotel, stepping inside as if they were travelers looking for a place out of the rain.

The man behind the counter looked up. "No vacanc—" and was silenced by Takahata's severely toned-down iaiken.

Kotarou gave a low whistle. "Nice."

"Thank you," Takahata said as he went around the counter and dug through the drawers for a moment until he found what he sought. He placed the book on the counter and flipped through it, motioning Kotarou over. "It's a layout of each floor," he explained as he flipped through the pages. "It seems to be a standard hotel design... Circular hall, stairs and elevator on the east and west ends. Twelve stories tall." He paused and looked at the rack where keys would normally be placed behind the reception desk. "But with keys for only the first eleven."

"So they don't use the top floor?" Kotarou asked, not sure exactly what the older man was getting at.

"That's where the hostages will be," Takahata said, finally finding the floor plans he was looking for. "We'll have to check each room on the twelfth floor, along with any bathrooms or closets, just in case the hostages may be hiding there," he explained.

Kotarou nodded, so Takahata hid the injured man and put the book back in the drawer, making it seem as though the receptionist had simply stepped away for a moment. They searched for the nearest elevator/stairwell, and Kotarou groaned. "Out of order. That figures," he grumbled as he opened the door to the stairwell.

They slogged their way up eleven floors without incident, until the stairwell came to an end on the eleventh floor.

"Hey, Takahata, I thought you said this place has twelve floors?"

"There should be a hidden staircase somewhere," Takahata said thoughtfully. "It's probably in a storage room…let's go."

A quick search revealed no signs of life on the eleventh floor. "No vacancy, indeed," Takahata murmured when he met up with Kotarou again.

"It looked like a storage room over on the other side, but the door's locked and I didn't want to make a big fuss, so…"

Takahata nodded. "I understand."

The two approached the room and Takahata tried the door, finding that it was, indeed, locked. The older man wasted no time, knocking the lock out with a quick shot of iaiken. They heard a startled grunt within and the scrape of chair legs across the floor. Takahata gave the door a light push and stepped aside while the door slowly swung inwards to reveal a very…large man.

Takahata was about to step forward, but Kotarou put his arm out in front of him. "Don't worry about it, I got this one, Takahata! Go after that artist nee-san, I'll be up in a minute."

The teacher smiled lightly. "Very well. Don't take too long, Kotarou-kun."

Kotarou gave an arrogant smirk. "Hmph, worry about yourself. This should be fun!" Kotarou said as he flew forward, driving the big man into the wall while Takahata strolled to the stairs in the corner of the room. Kotarou glanced back long enough to see Takahata disappear through a door at the top, then turned back to the big man, who had regained his feet and was cracking his knuckles.

"You are strong for a child," the man said, his incredibly deep voice booming through the room. "I may not have to go easy on you."

"Hah! More like I won't have to go easy on you!" Kotarou said, not realizing his words didn't reflect his meaning.

The corners of the big man's mouth twitched, lifting his everlasting frown a few millimeters.

----

Takahata stepped through the door with an air of casual indifference and pulled it shut behind him. He crushed out what was left of his cigarette in an ashtray on a table by the door and took a quick look around. As with all the other floors, there was a security camera in each corner, and those which were visible were pointing at directly at him. He wondered absently how long they had known that he and Kotarou were there, and decided it was probably since they entered the building. He went to the first room on the left, opened the door, and ducked his head in. It was an empty room, probably used for storage. The next was the same way. The third contained a rather disturbing blood stain, and a quick check of the surroundings showed tiny bits of bodily tissues clinging here and there on the walls and floor. Hands in his pockets, he turned around just in time to avoid the ki shot that had been aimed at his head.

His eyes widened a fraction of an inch when the stark man before him sidestepped his iaiken.

"So you are no normal man," Takahata said conversationally, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it.

"Neither are you. Smoking is not permitted here," the stranger said offhandedly.

"My apologies. Was this the girl?" Takahata said, not even bothering to gesture to the mess behind him.

To his surprise, the man's dark expression changed to one of annoyance. "No. The girl is alive. That was one of my subordinates," he said, a hint of distaste visible on his face. "He disobeyed orders and tried to rape her," he said as his right arm hand shot to his left elbow and his left hand flashed up. Takahata calmly sidestepped the ki shot that blew another neat hole in the wall behind him and waited for the broken pieces of window to stop falling before he resumed his questioning.

"Are you the leader here?" Takahata asked, using iaiken, which the man again sidestepped.

"Yes. My name is Rav, at your service. And may I ask the name of the iaiken master I am fighting?"

"Takahata Takamichi. Nice to meet you," Takahata said, meeting the other man's ki shot with his iaiken, the two canceling each other out in a quick blast of wind. Takahata backed into the room to within a few feet of the back wall, and Rav entered and shut the door, both preferring the bigger space of the room to the narrow hallway.

The two faced each other across the room, each waiting for the other to move first. Takahata flicked his cigarette through the broken window and put his hands in his pockets again, while Rav assumed a stance that looked for all the world like that of a gunslinger from those American cowboy movies Shizuna teased him about.

"I am unfamiliar with your stance," Takahata said conversationally, using iaiken again, which the other man sidestepped. He didn't dare use it full power inside the building, lest he bring the whole structure down.

"I developed it through years of research," Rav said slowly, trying to feel out his opponent. Takahata dodged the ki shot. "You are from the other world," he added with surety after a moment.

"So I am," Takahata replied. He used iaiken again at the same instant Rav used his ki shot, both collided in a bigger gust than last time, ripping wallpaper and making the sheets on the bed flutter.

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Kotarou dove at the big man, punching and kicking wildly as his opponent blocked every blow. The big man was incredibly quick, and Kotarou realized he may be in trouble this time. They separated and Kotarou called out to the man. "Hey, oji-san, what's your name?"

"I am Kage," he said, his deep voice filling the room. "And I have dragon's blood in my veins," he said, spewing dragon's fire from his mouth that splashed where Kotarou had been standing an instant before, spreading liquid fire everywhere.

"Whoa whoa, are you sure it's ok to use that here?" Kotarou called from his new position to the left of the dragon-man. The fire was catching; already a large pile of newspapers was burning merrily.

Kage grinned. Or at least, twitched his perpetual frown into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a grin. "It doesn't matter," he answered.

They closed again and Kotarou was reminded of the Chinese martial arts Negi used. Apparently, this big man was trained in the same thing. Well, Kotarou had sparred enough with Negi to know most of the tricks, so that wasn't a problem, and— His train of thought was cut off when a massive back-handed blow sent him across the room and into the far wall.

"Don't get sidetracked," Kage said, and shot another blast of fire at him.

Kotarou barely managed to roll out of the way. His head still ringing from the blow, he scrambled to his feet as Kage approached.

Before he could react, the big man leapt forward and grabbed Kotarou's neck in one massive hand, lifting him high into the air until his hair brushed the ceiling. The dragon-man drew back a fist, and Kotarou called out desperately for his wolves.

They appeared from nowhere, snapping at the big man's heels and forcing him to drop Kotarou. He caught his breath, then got to his feet and prepared to face his attacker. Kage was sending the wolves flying with horrific blows that would shatter ribcages and liquefy organs with one shot…Kotarou was thankful that the wolves couldn't actually be killed. But enough was enough, this was supposed to be a quick mission, after all. Besides, Natsumi-nee-chan was worried about him, and Chizuru-nee-san would scold him if he wasted time and got hurt.

Gathering more energy in his fist than he ever had before, Kotarou readied his blow as the dragon man grabbed the last wolf and ripped it in half, unsummoning it instantly. He looked down at Kotarou and his frown deepened when the wolf-boy darted forward, throwing his highly-charged punch.

The blast shook the building and blew out the wall behind the dragon man, who had somehow, amazingly, blocked the main force of the blow by crossing his arms in front of him; it didn't stop his from being blasted backward, though. The eleven-story fall through the broken wall to the ground below would be harder to survive, no matter how you looked at it, Kotarou thought as he rushed up the stairs to the twelfth floor.

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Takahata and Rav held their balance as the building lurched, and Takahata's eyes narrowed slightly at a startled scream came from another room.

"I smell smoke…shouldn't you be escaping now?" Takahata asked, making calculations and steeling himself for what would likely come next.

"I could say the same," Rav said, crouching ever-so-slightly.

Takahata's kanka blast drove straight through the walls and ceiling behind Rav, who dropped flat to the floor and rolled away at the last instant, finally catching Takahata with a ki shot that sent him flying into the already damaged outer wall.

Kotarou chose that moment to leap onto Rav's back from behind, slowing him down while Takahata delivered a brutal iaiken punch that sent Rav and Kotarou both flying through several walls. Takahata rushed to the room the screams had come from and forced the door, revealing Haruna and Kazumi. Wasting no time, he led them to the hidden ladder and began climbing down. "Hurry," he said as he went. "The building will probably come down."

"Ah! What about my pactio card?!" Haruna shouted.

"Where is it?"

"That weird guy took it," she replied, describing Rav.

"Kamo-kun can make another one," Takahata said as the group ran through the heavily damaged eleventh floor.

They quickly ran into Kotarou, who was favoring his leg. "Is this everybody?" he asked, looking at Haruna and Kazumi.

The group went down the stairwell, finally emerging on the first floor, Haruna and Asakura wheezing, only to find Rav standing in front of the entrance door.

"No way!" Kotarou shouted. "How did you get down here before us?"

Rav looked at him as if he were a flea. "I used the service elevator." He took a long, serious look at Kazumi, who cringed back behind Takahata, before finally fixing the older man with his blank gaze. "You are the first to defeat me, congratulations. It will not happen again, however," he said. He flicked Haruna's pactio card toward the girl, then turned and went through the doorway with a severe limp, disappearing into the evening. A quick check outside showed that Kage, despite falling eleven stories to the concrete below, was gone as well.

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Negi and Asuna approached the side of the massive warehouse carefully, while Mana circled around to the back. Asuna summoned her harisen and waited for Mana's signal. A minute passed, then another and another. Finally, at the three minute-mark, Asuna was about to barge in when gunshots rang from somewhere inside the building, bringing out startled shouts from the other side of the wall as people ran to investigate.

They waited for an agonizing ten seconds, then Asuna kicked the door in and darted inside, followed by Negi, rapid fire gunshots ringing through the building from somewhere in the back.

Asuna had a glimpse of four startled yakuza standing at a table before Negi finished chanting a spell that blasted them into a stack of crates, shattering the boxes into scrap wood and burying the men underneath. Takane just stared at them open mouthed while Mei, behind a bar on the opposite side of the room, looked at them blankly.

"Bwahaha! What's with the bunny suit Takane-san?" Asuna asked as Takane's face reddened.

"Stop laughing, this isn't funny!" the girl shouted as she tried to cover herself. Negi, embarrassed, passed her his mage robe.

"Where is Nodoka-san being held?" he asked.

Mei piped up at this. "I can show you," she said as she hurried over to the door in the back. "It's on the second floor. Ku Fei-san is here too, but I don't know where she is," she added.

"Ok, let's go!"

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Mana's diversionary tactics had worked wonders, drawing well over a dozen people to her location and away from Negi-sensei and Kagurazaka's entry point. She quickly dispatched them and reloaded her guns. A quick glance showed nothing but groaning yakuza in the hallway, so she slipped through an unlocked door to her right, coming face to face with two more yakuza. One quick gunbattle later, they were on the floor as well. 'These tranquilizer bullets I got from Hakase are quite powerful,' she thought, making a mental note to obtain more of them when they returned to the campus.

A quick check of the two doors on the right wall showed two empty rooms, but the office door on the left seemed more promising. The man standing in the large office on the other side looked ordinary for a yakuza except for the twin custom berettas he held, pointed directly at her head.

She dropped to the floor and dove behind a nearby desk as the man's guns blasted, then threw a few random shots over the top to force the man to take cover. There was a quick clatter of something falling from an office desk on the other side of the room and then silence flooded through the office, and only the sound of her own breathing reached her ears. Something thunked against a desk followed by a muffled curse, and then Mana was out and shooting at the same instant as the man on the other side of the room. They moved almost in unison, finally closing at the far side of the room, guns blazing as they emptied magazines and reloaded again and again in a wild display of theatric gun-fu.

Twisted, wild grins were plastered to the faces of both shooters as they went all out, flipping, shooting, and running around like characters in a John Woo film. The walls were riddled with bullet holes, the office desks were coming apart, bits of paper torn and burned by gunshots fluttered around the room as the two combatants finally stopped moving and faced each other.

"How many have you got left?" the man asked.

"One shot in each. You?" Mana replied in a nonchalant manner.

"The same. I'm Saga Jin, and it's nice to finally meet someone like you."

"Tatsumiya Mana, likewise."

Four shots rang out almost in the same instant.

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"Come on, Takane-san! Hurry!" Negi urged the girl to go faster, but her high heels kept tripping her up. Finally fed up, she kicked them off and followed.

From the sound of it, Mana had either hidden a machine gun somewhere on her person, or was else facing an army. Asuna slowed to look wonderingly at the room with all the gunfire as they passed, until a stray bullet shattered the door's window. She quickly caught up to the others.

"In here! Mei had to shout to be heard above all the gunfire as she opened a door. The guard in the room greeted her nervously and unlocked the door behind him; he never saw Asuna, Takane, or Negi enter until Asuna bashed him over the head with her harisen, knocking him out cold.

Negi threw open the door. "Nodoka-san! Let's go!" he shouted, grabbing Nodoka's arm and pulling her through the door.

"O-ok!" the shy girl replied, looking nervously at the drooling guard on the floor.

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The gunfire had stopped by this point, and the door they passed a moment ago had been shot off its hinges. Asuna glanced into the room and saw Mana holding her shoulder and looking at a man on the floor.

"Asuna-san, please help Mana-san find Ku Fei-san," Negi said. "I will take everyone else downstairs and clear the way."

Asuna nodded. "Got it. Take care, Negi."

Negi nodded and lead the others away.

Asuna entered the bullet-riddled room. "Mana-san? Are you all right?"

"It's nothing."

"Is he…?" Asuna asked, indicating the man on the floor.

"Unconscious. Help me find Ku," she said. "She should be behind this door," Mana said, indicating a door at the back of the room. Asuna tried the door and found it locked. Mana motioned for her to go ahead, so she stood back and kicked the door down, revealing a glaring Ku Fei, wrapped up in a straightjacket, hanging on a coat hook in the storage room. Mana stepped up and ripped the strip of tape off Ku's mouth.

"Ow, that hurt aru!"

Asuna stood by while Mana lowered Ku Fei from the coat hook and cut her loose.

"Can you run?" Mana asked as the blonde girl stretched and moved around to get her blood flowing again.

"Running, no problem, aruyo."

The trio made their way back to the front room where they rejoined Negi and Nodoka, and made their way out of the warehouse.

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Author's Note: Well, that's it for the rescues. Poor Ku Fei, huh? Heh. And Saga Jin was designed as a good natured mix between Revy and the Triad guy from Black Lagoon, in a package that looks like Rock. Rav on the other hand...not so good natured. And what about that look he gave Kazumi at the end?


	20. Chapter 19

Still Waters 2: Another Turn, Chapter 19

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There's fire on the mountain, lightning in the air

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Jacob Donner was fleeing. Everything was coming down around him, and there was little he could do about it. Even his own home had been attacked, probably destroyed. The Yukihiro Group's inspectors had discovered some of his accountant's fraudulent methods of bookkeeping, and, to top it all off, he had accidentally burned the wrong papers before fleeing his estate. He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he sped through the mountain roads on his way south.

It would probably be just another hour or so before he reached his other estate outside of Tokyo, if he kept this pace up. "Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!!" he screamed in a petty bout of rage, pounding the steering wheel. He forced himself to calm down. There was no point in dwelling on past failures.

And they were definitely failures. Already, phone calls had confirmed that _every single girl_ had been rescued, all his hired guns had failed. All the money spent to prepare the research sites in anticipation of revealing the secrets of magic was wasted, the slave traders would not get their prizes, and he would have to dispose of those who were expecting returns on their investments, since he could no longer pay them with the slave traders' money. Not to mention the losses due to property damage, hospital bills for the injured, bribes to the police and other authorities…bribes which may not even work; Donner was very aware that many of the police here in Japan simply seemed immune to bribery. This was insane!

Realizing he was starting to overreact again, Donner made himself pull over at a rest stop so he could get out and walk around for a moment to clear his head. He had just gotten one of those weird Japanese drinks from a machine when he noticed some punks gathering around his car. "Hey! Hey you kids, get away from that!"

One young man lowered his sunglasses—'Why is he wearing sunglasses at _night_?' Donner wondered absently—and gave him that odd, semi-constipated look that street punks in Japan seemed to think was frightening. Donner was not impressed.

"Eeeeeh? What's your problem, old man? Is something wrong? Do you not like me looking at this fine piece of automotive history? Huh?" The others strutted around Donner until he was surrounded by six street punks.

Warily, Donner reached into his pocket, but something struck him a hard blow on the back of the head before he could draw his gun, and he fell to his hands and knees. The punks closed in, then, and beat him viciously until he was left little more than a bloody, quivering mess on the pavement.

"Hey man, check this out! He left the keys in the ignition!"

"Hah! Awesome, let's go!"

"Yeah! Hey old man, thanks for the car," one of them said, dumping the remains of his drink on Donner as he lay there, then gave him one final kick for good measure.

Donner could hear them running their mouths as they squeezed into the car and had a vicious urge to wring their necks with his bare hands. He twisted his head painfully and tried to get one last glimpse of his beloved Ferrari 250 Spyder, but it was already gone, the engine roaring as the punks drove it away. And then there was nothing but the chirping of crickets and his own wheezing breath, so he dragged himself upright and made his way to a payphone. Damn those kids…! Damn all of them!

Once he was back on his feet again and set up in the Ukraine or Argentina, then he could go about getting his revenge. A Ferrari such as his beloved 250 was very rare; it wouldn't be hard to locate it again. From there, each of those punks would receive a visit from one of Donner's…'friends', who would be sure to clean up after himself. Those punks would rue the day they fucked with Jacob Donner…! Yes, he would first kill their pets and families, and dispose of the bodies in the acid baths they usually used to dispose of such things, then slowly lower each punk alive into the same acid bath that had just dissolved his own family members, yes, yes. Donner cackled laughter. "Yes, and you'll be the last, you fucking punk!" he screamed into the night, referring to the one with sunglasses. A dog started barking in the distance, and Donner came back to reality. He picked up a stick to use as a crutch, and made his way up to the road, where he flagged down a car, whose owner he shot and rolled down the embankment. He got in and started driving, making sure to cement in his mind the face of each of his attackers.

He eventually managed to calm down as he drove, and turned on the radio.

"—authorities are still not sure as to the details of Mr. Donner's illegal operations, but—"

He quickly turned it off.

So, someone had spilled their guts to the police, and from there to the media. He would likely have to change his name again. What a pain. He continued driving.

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Donner arrived at his other estate just under two hours later, and had to flash his ID to the guard on duty, who insisted on taking him to a hospital. Donner waved the man off and parked the stolen car in the garage, between the Countach and the '36 Talbot. Honestly, the Civic looked pitiful sitting between them. He snorted in disgust and made his way through the house to his private bathroom, where he cleaned his face up and took a good long soak in the bath.

Already his face was badly swollen…it was no wonder the guard on duty had forced him to show ID. He was still angry, but it was sort of understandable, given what he looked like now.

…that thought gave him an idea. Donner climbed out of the bath and wiped the mist from the mirror so he could see his reflection. It was true, he didn't look anything like himself. He opened the medicine cabinet and took out his razor and a can of shaving gel, and got to work. He had to be careful around the tender areas, but after about ten minutes, took a good long look in the mirror, and grinned painfully.

Without his goatee and his swollen face, he might as well be a stranger. His face still hurt like hell, though. Not to mention the rest of his body.

His musings were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Phone, boss."

Donner opened the door and took the phone, shooing the man away. "Donner here."

'Donner you sly bastard, what are you trying to pull?' the man on the other line demanded.

Donner was taken aback, naturally. "Who is this?"

'Captain Slater. What are you trying to pull, Donner?'

"Captain Slater…from the mercenary group, correct?"

'Private Military Company. We're not mercenaries.'

"I see. Now, what is this about?" Donner asked, considerably aggravated.

'The transfer you promised never went through, Donner. You owe us a lot of money, and we intend to get it.'

"…I approved that transfer days ago." That gave Donner pause. His transfer had to have been blocked somehow. But…oh no. "I'll call you back, Slater. I think the police may be investigating the both of us," Donner said. Slater swore a blue streak in several languages and Donner hung up the phone, wrapped a towel around his waist, and went to his computer room, to his 'safe' computer.

A quick check of his bank accounts showed they were all overdrawn by many thousands of dollars. "What on Earth…?"

"Boss! Boss, hurry! Get yourself dressed, we're under attack!" One of the guards shouted as he ran into the room with his gun drawn.

"What?!"

The guard ran around the room, checking anywhere a person might have hidden, even as a distant boom that might have been fireworks sounded in the night. "Hurry, we have to go!" the guard said, frantically. Several more dull booms sounded, and the guard led Donner to his room at a run.

"Stay away from the windows, please," the guard said as Donner grabbed some clothing from the dresser and closet. "We have to hurry, sir."

Donner gave the man an irritated look as he buttoned up his shirt and grabbed a tie.

Another, much closer explosion rattled the house, and Donner's eyes widened. That had been close. And big. He was slipping on his shoes when a ridiculously bright searchlight shined through his windows, forcing him to shield his eyes.

"What the fuck?!"

"Sir, get down!" the guard said, forcing him to the ground.

They heard the whine of a speaker, followed by a bumping sound, as if someone were tapping a microphone to make sure it worked. Then what sounded like a teenage girl began speaking. "Jacob Donner, we know you're in there. We have the place surrounded, come out with your hands up!"

"What, does she think this is a movie?" the guard asked incredulously. Donner concurred. What the hell was going on, here?!

"Jacob Donner, I know what you did last summer!"

"Why haven't you people killed her yet?" Donner asked irritably.

"I don't know. She's got something with her, it's got to be a tank or something. Nobody saw what was happening but Jack, out at the guard shack, but he's not responding to calls. Whatever it is, it's capable of firing some major artillery."

"Let's get out of here. There is a hidden passage in the closet," Donner said, leading the way as he crawled across the floor.

"Hey you, don't move!" the girl outside yelled. Her voice was almost immediately followed by a huge blast that rattled the house and shook plaster from the ceiling. "I warned you." This was followed by the unmistakable sound of a gatling gun starting to spin, which blasted a row of holes through the wall roughly twelve inches above Donner and the frightened guard's heads.

"Fuck fuck fuck!" the guard screamed as he covered his head and curled up on the floor.

Donner looked at the man in disgust and scrambled for the trap door. He opened it and lowered himself into the passage, and pulled it shut after him, cutting off most of the sounds. If that coward of a guard couldn't handle something like that, he wasn't worthy of being a guard anyway.

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die!" the girl chirped through the speaker, followed by more explosions and the screams of the wounded. The sound was muffled here underground, but he could still hear it just fine as he ran through the passageway. Wondering randomly about the girl's sanity, he climbed the ladder at the end and opened the trapdoor above him. When he climbed out into the garage, he simply stared in shock and horror.

His cars, his beloved cars…all of them were shot full of holes. The DB4, the Cobra, the Mercedes, even the '29 Bentley! All of them, ruined!

Donner collapsed to the floor. "My…my cars…"

Massive explosions suddenly rocked the house behind him, bits of debris knocking him flat as the roof started to collapse above him.

Donner scrambled for the side door and burst through it, almost ripping it from its hinges as his survival instincts kicked in.

"Freeze right there!" the girl with the microphone shouted as those impossibly bright spotlights shined directly in his face.

Donner lost his balance and fell unceremoniously on his butt in the mud, then started to scramble backward toward the collapsing garage.

"Fire!"

Several small rockets flashed by over Donner's head, and the garage erupted in a massive explosion of flying debris. Donner was blasted across the yard and rolled several feet before coming to rest near the hedgerow, whimpering. A burning tire rolled up and bounced off his stomach.

"It looks like you've had a bad day. How does it feel?" the girl asked, and Donner realized he was hearing her actual voice, rather than a speaker system.

He tried to look at her, but all he could see was a vague silhouette, all features lost due to the bright lights shining behind her.

"Who are you?" he asked, breathless from the pain and loss he had suffered.

"A concerned citizen. How does it feel, Mr. Donner? You kidnapped my friends, attacked my home, caused the deaths of several people…how does it feel?"

"What…?"

"You will no doubt be pleased to know that your accounts have all been overdrawn and frozen. Your funds, such as they were, will be put to good use," the girl said.

"What are you talking about?!"

"Various hospitals and retirement homes will be glad to receive the kind, anonymous donations of supplies and money, and several automotive museums around the world will be glad to receive the anonymous donations of important pieces of automotive history. Also, the contents of your hard drives have all been forwarded to the proper authorities," she continued. "And the group of mercenaries you hired to do your dirty work? I believe they will be quite angry when they discover your plans to dispose of them in a tragic plane crash at sea."

Donner started shaking his head. "No…no!"

"The yakuza you manipulated…will also be displeased. As will the port authorities, the arms suppliers, that South American dictator, the oil sheiks, the man in the Ukraine, the black market slave dealers in the Balkans…Mister Gaze as well, I believe. Need I go on? I can, you know…for almost an hour."

Donner was shaking now, clutching his hair and whipping his head back and forth. "No! No! You can't do this!"

"I already have. Just remember, Mr. Donner…this is what happens when you mess with my friends," the girl said.

After a moment Donner stopped his frenzied, shaking movements and his mind became oddly clear. He saw the girl's silhouette as she turned to say something to whoever was standing behind her. He felt a familiar weight in his pants pocket, and slipped his hand inside to grab his gun, a little semi-automatic .22. Sure, it wasn't a .45 or a .357, but it had been directly responsible for more than one death…he'd show her. He'd show this girl what happened when you fucked with Jacob Donner! He'd show her…!

"Rally, Go ahead."

"Yes, Hakase."

Four gunshots rang out and Donner screamed as the humerus in both arms were shattered by high caliber bullets, quickly followed by both femurs.

Needless to say, he dropped the pistol.

"Let's go home, Rally. We'll let the authorities take care of him."

"Y-yes," she said, looking back. "Will he be ok?"

"You didn't hit any major veins, did you?"

"No…"

"He'll be fine," Hakase said as sirens from police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks blared. The vehicles were roaring toward the burning and half destroyed manor house now.

At the top of a small hill, Hakase turned back for one last look, a faint smile as of a job well done graced her features, and then she climbed into the waiting helicopter with her companion. "Let's go, I'm tired…" she said to the pilot.

"Got it. We'll be there in thirty minutes."

"Thank you."

----

The helicopter circled overhead once, twice, and Donner screamed his lungs out at it, not even bothering to use actual words anymore; he was too far gone for that. He tried to shake his fists at it, but only succeeded in causing himself untold agony as he flailed around, arms and legs flopping bonelessly.

He screamed and screamed and screamed, even as the paramedics sedated him and strapped him into the stretcher, he screamed. Endless, wordless sounds, meaningless to everyone but himself.

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Author's Note: Aaaand…Hakase's pretty scary.


	21. Chapter 20

Still Waters Another Turn, Chapter 20

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Into This House We're Born, Into This World We're Thrown

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Everyone made their way back to the rendezvous point as quickly as they were able, exhausted now that the adrenaline-pumping action of battle was over. Those who were used to such things took the chance to get some sleep during the long car ride, while others simply looked out through the car windows into the night.

As each group arrived, Ayaka and Yuuna greeted them in front of the shipping truck that contained their command center. Yuuna congratulated everyone enthusiastically as always while Ayaka greeted them quietly, looking at worriedly and glaring at Mana's bandaged shoulder wound when she climbed out of the car.

Ayaka had watched the monitors closely the entire time, and it only showed her that, surprisingly, she still wanted to be a part of it. A fierce determination had sprung up in her, more strongly than anything she had ever felt before. She wanted to be on their level. She _had_ to be on their level. While Yuuna cheered at every explosion and defeated enemy during the operation, Ayaka had quickly fallen silent, her eyes narrowing in concentration as she watched.

So _that_ was what it meant to feel alive.

Being the daughter of a very rich man who also ran a truly enormous business group, Ayaka had been carefully trained since childhood to speak a certain way, eat a certain way, act a certain way. She was tired of it. She was tired of being the stately Ojou-sama everyone expected her to be. She recalled her old martial arts trainer, who had been fired one day when the family advisors had decided that it wasn't fitting for a young ojou-sama to be tossed around like a ragdoll or trained to hit others like some vulgar common person. She had tried to maintain contact afterward, though someone had found out and she had been punished.

Still…it would be hard, but maybe she could ask Asuna? The girl was obviously capable. Magic intrigued Ayaka as well, but she didn't know where to begin.

She looked down at her hands. After what she had seen and learned since the summer, she could never go back to being nothing more than a rich ojou-sama.

----

Max's group was the last to arrive. Max and Jennifer stepped out of the van, followed by Akira, who held back for a moment before following her teacher.

Ayaka woke up Yuuna, and the two congratulated the returning group.

"Nice job Akira! I liked what you did with that big water thing, and—" Yuuna gushed at the other girl when she stepped out of the car.

Ayaka pulled Max aside as he went by. "Are they ok?" she asked in a whisper.

Max nodded. "They're exhausted, they've been sleeping since we left. Setsuna especially, she was hurt pretty badly when the robots attacked Mahora."

The only warning either one of them had of what would happen next was an engine roaring. A slight lightening of the eastern sky as dawn crept closer was enough for Ayaka to get a glimpse of the car speeding toward them. The next thing she knew, Max had shoved her so hard she stumbled backward for a dozen feet or more before falling on her bottom. A terrible, indescribable *THUNK-thunk-thunk* and a pained grunt filled her head as Max rolled up the hood and over the top of the car, finally hitting the ground with another grunt.

Ayaka screamed as the car smashed into one of the vans in the motor pool.

Suddenly, people were swarming around all over the place, and black suited bodyguards approached the car with guns drawn. The driver's door opened and a large man past his prime stepped out, took a look around, and raised his hand. The ring of bodyguards was blown back, and Ayaka had a prime view of the man as his body began to deform, stretching here, shrinking there, growing new appendages and bulking up, all while becoming larger and larger. It couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, but it was so…so grotesque that Ayaka knew it would be at the center of her nightmares for a long time to come.

The man had turned into a dragon, an actual _dragon,_ a living and breathing dragon. She stumbled back, took a glance at Max-sensei, who was on hands and knees with his head hanging, and shut her mouth tight. It was just like before, with the robot on the athletic field. And again, just like before, she was powerless to do anything.

She would not scream again. She wouldn't. But she couldn't do anything to help either. Not yet, not yet.

The others were rushing back now, Negi-sensei and Asuna-san, who was so startled at the sight of the dragon that she dropped her harisen. The others, Konoka-san and Sakurazaki-san, who was leaning heavily on the Konoe heir. Okochi-san, who ran to Max-sensei's side, and Jennifer-san who took one look at her partner and shot a glare at the dragon so chilling that Ayaka felt herself taking a step back without even realizing it.

And now they were all arrayed there, bodyguards, classmates, and teachers alike, facing the dragon as the eastern sky slowly lightened behind them. Even Chisame-san and Yuuna-san were there. All but the stately ojou-sama, who hid off to the side like a coward.

----

The dragon cleared its throat with a rumbling sound, and then began to speak. "You, son of the thousand master," it rumbled. "You have ruined my last chance to write my name in history. None of you will survive to see the sunrise."

"What are you talking about? Who are you?" Negi demanded of the dragon.

"Need I name myself for a child?" the dragon asked rhetorically. "Very well. My name is Gaze," it said as it shook itself and stretched.

Takahata's eyes narrowed. "Be careful Negi, he was a member of the group your father defeated twenty years ago." Quiet murmuring followed this announcement.

"You fought my father…?"

"Yes. He was a brilliant fighter, not that it won him anything but torment," the dragon replied. It cocked its head to the side and scanned over the group. "This is what I face…interesting," it said, its voice rumbling.

'That is the Konoe girl, unless I miss my guess,' Gaze thought to himself. Yes, and there was the girl from the Crow Tribe, there was the golem maker and the mind reader and the medium…he recognized many faces from his files. He spotted a girl with long red hair and gave her a long, searching look until she started backing away in spite of her best efforts to remain still. "So it is true…" he rumbled. "It _is_ you. No matter."

"What…?" Asuna asked.

He turned to focus his attention on the child teacher. "You, Negi Springfield, have ruined my last chance. Now all that is left, the last thing I can do, is to avenge my masters; both those who fell to your father, and those still alive. Prepare yourself, boy. Defeat me if you can."

Ayaka watched what happened next in horror. Her beloved Negi-sensei barely had time to erect a shield before he was engulfed in liquid dragon's fire as the dragon tried to incinerate his main target.

The dragon was pelted with a dozen spells from a dozen mages in an instant, but shook off the attack with a roar and erupted with another blast of dragon's fire as it swept around, trying to catch as many in the flames as it could.

And then a massive fireball impacted the side of the dragon's head, and it turned to face the new threat.

Ayaka watched as Max-sensei limped forward to face the dragon. "So you like to play with fire, do you?!"

"No, Max!" Jennifer yelled nearby.

"Hoo, I thought I had killed you," the dragon said, following immediately with another blast of dragon's fire.

Ayaka thought for sure that Max-sensei would be killed, but he wasted no time and unleashed an enormous blast of elemental fire that met the dragon's fire halfway, and they began a contest of power, one which the teacher must ultimately lose, but which also forced the dragon to focus its attention solely on him.

The others, Ayaka saw Ku Fei-san and Nagase-san and even Yuuna-san among them, seized the opportunity to attack the dragon from the other side while he was distracted. Gaze stopped the stream of dragon's fire and ducked the remnants of the blast from Max-sensei, and swept the cluster of cars with another spray, sending the thirty-odd people hiding there scrambling for cover. Max-sensei was throwing fireballs steadily now and Jennifer-san focused on shielding Max-sensei, Akira-san, and herself, while Asuna-san learned, almost to her great regret, that dragon's fire was not quite magical; only Negi's quick shield saved her from serious harm.

Gaze charged through the cluster of burning cars, tossed the shipping-truck-cum-communications-center aside like a toy in his fury, sending techs and other members of the support team, Misora-san and Cocone-san among them, running for the nearby forest. Others ran to get out of the dragon's line of sight, while Takahata-sensei tried to draw its attention with a heavy dose of Kanka that knocked Gaze off balance. The dragon's tail swept around and sent Max-sensei and Jennifer-san flying in a rain of debris while he swept clawed hands around trying to snatch the humans that were swarming around him.

Throughout all of this, Ayaka found herself clenching her fists, wishing that there was something, anything she could do help.

But she was powerless. She couldn't use magic, she couldn't even fight…she wasn't on a level with Asuna-san anymore. "I'm…I'm weak," she said aloud. Maybe…maybe if she made it through this, maybe she could ask her father to arrange lessons. Her mother would never allow it, but, well, she had to do _something_; this sense of helplessness was just too terrible.

----

Asuna found Negi kneeling behind an overturned car while the dragon rampaged somewhere off to the left. "What do we do, Negi? You've never fought a dragon before, right?"

Negi's face was scrunched up in concentration. "He's an intelligent dragon, so he is even more dangerous than usual."

Takahata scrambled over after a moment and nodded to Negi and Asuna. "Hello Negi-kun, Asuna-kun."

"How do you beat a dragon, Takahata-sensei?" Asuna asked.

"If he were just an animal it would be easy, but this one seems to have the usual protections for a mage, amplified to fit his new appearance," Takahata said thoughtfully. "It's a very high level transformation, but he has to tire eventually. The problem is staying alive until then."

"If Asuna-san were to get close enough to use her magic canceling..." Negi said.

"That would work," Takahata replied thoughtfully. "I will create a distraction for him, seize the opportunity, Asuna-kun, Negi-kun. Try to keep everyone else back until you're ready, if you can." Takahata left them and began working his way around to the other side of the dragon, who was now destroying the rest of the motor pool. Negi used the pactio cards' telepathy function to tell his partners to keep out of reach of the dragon and help the others escape.

----

'_Chisame-san? Chisame-san, are you all right?'_

Chisame blinked a few times and realized her head was pounding. She took a look at her surroundings and saw blinking lights and occasional sparks in the otherwise pitch darkness. "What…"

'_Chisame-san! Please answer me.'_

"Negi…?" she asked. She remembered now; was in the communications center. It was lying on its side though, and the techs were nowhere to be found. She got to her feet shakily and took out her pactio card. "Negi? Are you there?"

'_Thank goodness! I thought you might be hurt, Chisame-san!'_

"No…"

'_Please get away from the trailer and hide in the woods. Do you see Chachamaru-san anywhere?'_

Chisame shook some of the fuzziness from her head and took a good, long look around. And…there was a figure lying in a heap at the far end of the trailer.

'_Chisame-san? Is something wrong?'_

She just stared at it for a moment. Was it one of the techs? Whoever it was, it wasn't moving.

'_Chisame-san, please answer me!'_

She picked her way over broken and sparking computer equipment, and caught a glint of silver and long green hair, and stopped in place, one foot in the air. "Chachamaru…?"

There was no movement.

"Chachamaru! Hey, hey, get up," Chisame said as she hurried over to the robot girl. "Chachamaru! Hey!" she said, lightly smacking Chachamaru's cheek.

'What am I doing? She's a robot, not a human. Besides, that doesn't work in anything but movies, anyway,' Chisame scolded herself. She stuffed her pactio card back in her pocket and turned her full attention to Chachamaru

"Hey, Chachamaru, this isn't funny," she said as she pulled the other girl to a seated position. Chachamaru's head lolled to the side lifelessly and Chisame frowned and forced herself to ignore the rising panic. She took a few deep breaths and forced herself to calm down.

'Ok, think, Chisame! She's a robot, not a human. You've seen her sparring with Negi-sensei enough to know she's impact-resistant. Now think, what was she doing before the trailer was knocked over?'

She absently brushed some green hair aside out of Chachamaru's face as she tried to figure out what to do. Chachamaru had been interfacing with the computers at the start of the attack... Chisame had a brief moment of panic at the thought of an electrical surge frying Chachamaru's innards, but brushed it off as unrealistic. Chachamaru herself had told her once about the safety measures installed in her. Pretty much the only thing that could do serious damage to Chachamaru was a computer virus, and that was unlikely in this situation.

'Interfacing...'

Yes, there it was. A cable stretched between one of Chachamaru's fingers to a bank of ports on the side, now the roof, of the trailer. Maybe she was stuck waiting for a response from the broken computers?

Chisame took a chance and unplugged the cable.

There was a response almost immediately as something whirred to life in Chachamaru's chest and she blinked and looked around. "Greetings, Chisame-san."

"Hello, Chachamaru," Chisame said, an absurd sense of gratefulness almost creeping through. She realized she had had the girl's head on her lap after a moment and turned beet red. 'What the hell am I doing?!'

Chachamaru sat up and Chisame shot to her feet and dusted off her clothes. "They're still fighting out there," Chisame said; the sounds of combat outside were pretty intense.

"Yes."

"…we should probably get out of here," Chisame said.

"Yes," Chachamaru replied, still sitting on the ground.

"So…let's go."

Chachamaru remained silent for a moment. "Preliminary scans show severe damage to both anterior and posterior ligaments, as well as a dislocated artificial femur. It appears my legs are not working."

"Oh."

The two sat looking at each other for a moment.

"Well…I can't just leave you sitting here alone, can I?" Chisame asked irritably as she turned a chair right side up and sat down.

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"Konoka-san, look out!"

With a roar of triumph, the dragon flapped its wings and slowly rose into the air.

"Negi! He's got Konoka!" Asuna shouted, pointing.

Sure enough, the dragon clutched the healer in one clawed hand. She didn't seem to be moving. As they watched, a winged form shot up from the ground with a screech. White hair and wings and a long, curved sword glistened in the early morning light.

"That's Setsuna! Hurry Negi, use the card! She's gone crazy, tell her to stop!" Asuna said, realizing Negi was already communicating telepathically.

A blast of energy, probably Takahata's Kanka, blasted the dragon in the side, knocking him from the air and out of Setsuna's path. "I'm going Negi! Come on!" Asuna shouted, already running toward the fallen dragon. Others darted out and started doing whatever they could to hurt or distract the beast through his magic shields.

Another blast knocked the dragon down again as he tried to rise, and then Asuna was there, hacking at the dragon with her sword, canceling his magic barrier and leaving him wide open to attack. He swatted her brutally away just in time to get blasted in the face by Negi's sagitta magica. The sun finally peaked over the distant mountains in the east, temporarily blinding him so he couldn't see what came directly after Negi.

Setsuna streaked in like a rocket, sword at the ready, and drove it deep, ripping through the dragons neck halfway up and leaving it hanging by a thread. She wasted no time and circled again, driving Yuunagi deep into the convulsing dragon's side, ripping him wide open as she zipped past and her classmates watched in horror.

Gaze's headless body flailed around, still holding Konoka, and finally fell to the ground, spasming wildly in its death throes. Gaze's movements slowed as his life's blood leaked out over the pavement and everyone watched warily, lest it be some sort of trick.

Finally all movement stopped, and the dragon's enormous body began to shrink and shrivel, slowly changing back to that of a human. Setsuna, splashed liberally with the dragon's blood, pulled Konoka to her feet and embraced her tightly, drawing startled gasps from some and knowing smiles from others.

People began to emerge from their hiding places and approached to see the outcome of the battle; a ragged cheer went up at the sight of the defeated enemy.

A sudden clapping sprang up from behind Negi, where no one had been moments ago. He whirled around to face the new threat, and was startled to see none other than Fate Averruncus.

"Well done, Negi," the white haired boy said as he stopped ten paces from Negi. Asuna limped up and stood in front of the teacher, sword at the ready even though she had been hurt, perhaps seriously. "Perhaps you are not as green as I thought," Fate continued, ignoring the girl.

"What do you want?" Asuna shouted as she took a threatening step forward.

Fate looked at her, then looked back at Negi; a dismissive glance.

Asuna fumed, but kept her silence.

"You did this, didn't you?" Negi asked. "You made him kidnap everyone and attack us, you made him hurt Asuna-san!"

Fate just looked at him with a bored expression. "No…that was his doing. He and his servants." He raised an arm as if calling someone forward, and five…unusual girls appeared as if from nowhere. "Beat them," he said.

It was quick, and it was brutal. Negi's group, already exhausted from the stress of fighting their way into and out of various criminal bases and then forced to fight a dragon on an hour's worth of sleep, didn't stand a chance. Some put up a much better fight than others, but in the end, they fell as well. Even Takahata, the most experienced of the lot, couldn't weather the storm. It had just been too much after too long.

His ministra arrayed around him, Fate approached Negi and Asuna where they lay in a heap, Asuna protectively draping herself over Negi's form even as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

"Why did you do this?" Negi asked, pain slurring his words.

Fate looked at where the dead man lay on the pavement some distance away. "He was going to die soon," he said randomly. "Maybe one year, maybe two. I suppose you could call him a friend." Fate fixed Negi with a hard stare. "At least he died fighting. That is more than can be said for a great many others."

"What are you talking about…?"

"You did well, for what it's worth," Fate said suddenly, nudging the boy teacher's hand with the toe of his shoe. He looked around the battlefield thoughtfully. "I extend to you an invitation, Negi. Come to me in the ruins of old Ostia in the other world in six years' time. Show me that you are worthy of being the Thousand Master's son, and I will tell you something interesting."

Something glimmered in Negi's eyes as he turned his head to look at Fate as the boy walked past to rejoin his followers.

"Remember, Negi. Five years. Maybe you can defeat me by then." And with that, the mysterious boy and his ministra teleported away.

When they were finally gone, Ayaka emerged from the forest to the west. She looked around warily for more enemies, but there was no one present but the injured. She pulled out her cell phone and made a call to the organization to send help, then steeled herself and approached Negi-sensei.

Asuna muttered something and gave a half-hearted grin when Ayaka helped her move off of the child teacher.

"Negi-sensei?" she asked hesitantly.

"Six years, he said…" the boy muttered as Ayaka pulled him up to a sitting position. He wobbled a bit and then fell on the girl, who lowered his head to her lap.

'Poor Negi-sensei…he's exhausted,' she thought. There was little she could do to help, but…if she couldn't help in battle, then she could at least give him a lap to lay his head on.

Asuna said something she didn't really hear, but she didn't care. She would get stronger, she had to.

----

"You are Captain Slater, correct?"

The military man glanced up from the menu he was looking at. "Yes? How can I help you?"

"Captain Slater, you are hereby under arrest. Anything you say—"

"Bullshit! What'd I do?!" he demanded, pushing the chair back as he rose and reached under his coat. Suddenly he realized he was facing two dozen uniformed officers, all with weapons drawn, and Slater carefully, _very carefully_ let go of the hidden gun holster and raised his hands to show they were empty.

"You have been charged with murder for hire, kidnapping, possession of illegal weaponry, smuggling—"

Carter, old acquaintance of Mana and the 'mercenary' who had ensured Chisame and Madoka's escape, leaned against a nearby wall, looking blankly at the traffic while he listened to the laundry list of charges as the police arrested Captain Slater. The man would go to jail for the rest of his life at least, and many who worked under him would undergo similar punishments. Considering some of the things he had done in other countries, his war crimes and murders and mistreatment of the locals, he would likely face extradition to another country or end up executed. Carter had chased him halfway across the world, after all. He knew the man like the back of his hand.

----

When the techs brought Chachamaru to the robotics lab for her post-mission checkup, she was greeted by an ecstatic Hakase.

"Listen, listen, Chachamaru! How would you like to be a big sister?"

"A big sister, Hakase?"

The girl turned around and waved to someone hiding behind a wall. "Come on, come over here, she won't bite you."

Chachamaru's eyes widened 2.4 millimeters as another gynoid stepped hesitantly around the corner and looked at the floor, knotting the front of her skirt shyly.

"Well go on, introduce yourself," Hakase said.

"H-hello, I am Rally Wheeler," she said in perfect Japanese, eyes looking everywhere but at Chachamaru. "I-I am…can I call you onee-chan?"

"Isn't she cute? She's so shy! I don't know how this 'Doctor Wheeler' managed to pull it off, but I was able to work her programming over sufficiently to run on a new, slightly younger 'heavy artillery' body I had been working on for you," Hakase explained as she looked over the damage to Chachamaru's legs.

"Her hair is pink," Chachamaru said.

"Of course, I didn't think it would be a good idea to have her seem like a replacement or a clone of you, Chachamaru."

Somehow, the gynoid was a bit relieved at that. She looked back at the young robot before her. "Greetings, I am Karakuri Chachamaru. You may call me onee-chan."

"Thank you, onee-chan," Rally mumbled.

"Apparently, she's named after the programmer's deceased daughter's nickname. Pretty strange, isn't it? Anyway, since that's how she identifies herself, I thought it would be for the best if we continued with that. Isn't that right, Rally-chan?"

The pink haired robot nodded.

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Author's Note: Finally, chapter 20, sorry about the delay. I had to rewrite this chapter several times, and I'm still not completely satisfied with it. Anyway here you go, I hope you enjoy. The next chapter ends this part of the story, but Still Waters 3 is looming on the horizon.


	22. Epilogue

Still Waters Another Turn, Epilogue

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Sittin In The Morning sun, I'll Be Sittin when The Evening Comes.

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Everyone returned to the campus and tried to take up where their lives had left off. There were tests to study for, events to plan for, and major decisions ahead of them, after all.

A month passed, then another and another and another. The rift between the cheerleaders healed, and a sheepish Madoka was welcomed back into the fold and moved out of Chisame's room, much to the hacker-girl's relief. Asuna continued her sword training with Setsuna, and even Konoka began to show an interest in at least learning the forms, since she still had the sword her father had given her as a gift.

Negi continued his training under Eva and Ku Fei, joined now by almost the entire class in one way or another. In the end, it turned out that not a single one of them was a normal person in the strictest sense of the word; each and every one possessed some unusual ability or skill or status. After the incident with Gaze, Negi went straight to Headmaster Konoe along with Konoka-san and Asuna-san and demanded to know the truth about his students. To his surprise, the headmaster had simply laughed and passed a _very_ thick folder to him.

"I've been expecting this, I just thought it would have been sooner," the old man had said with a twinkle in his eye, laughing heartily.

Glancing through the contents of the folder back home in the dorm, Negi had been shocked at the connections some of his students had. Almost every one had a family history of magic-users of some sort, and more than a few had direct relatives living in the magic world even now.

Some, like Chizuru-san or Kazumi-san, were incredibly powerful in various ways, though untrained, while others like Misa-san had natural talents, such as animation and darkness magic. The cheerleader in particular had a history of western witches in her family tree…several direct ancestors had been burned or otherwise executed as witches. Upon hearing of her actions while kidnapped, Eva had recently taken notice of her, and Misa would soon begin training under her.

Speaking of cheerleaders, Sakurako-san was quite unusual as well. Her incredible powers of purification were the main reason that Gaze's dream manipulation hadn't had a stronger effect. If she had been born a few hundred years before, the girl would have been a very powerful miko or onmyouji.

Chisame's talents in particular were unique in this day and age, though rare people with similar talents were recorded in various histories in the magic world. Few people could access the place she described, most thought Hodge and his bar to be a myth if they even knew about it at all. Chisame knew the difference, however, and always kept the key with her on a chain around her neck.

Negi never could figure out how he hadn't noticed the strength of Natsumi-san before, it was so obvious once one learned about it, flowing out constantly and enriching the lives and health of those around her. It was no wonder her roommates all tended to become beautiful, healthy individuals. She was so unsure of herself, but she possessed perhaps the most sought-after ability in the class. 'She should have been a cheerleader,' Negi thought. The sheer amount of life force she radiated was enough to inspire anyone. The combination of her and Sakurako's unusual abilities had gone quite far in keeping the students sane (well, as sane as they were before Gaze started manipulating their dreams, anyway).

Zazie-san's family history had come as a total surprise as well, and even after being her teacher for so long he still didn't know how to act around her. For her part, she seemed unaware of any change in his actions toward her. But honestly…such a dangerous family tree!

----

Graduation came, and Negi gave each student a choice. All of them made the decision he had hoped they would, all of them would continue their 'special' training. Iincho-san and Yuuna-san in particular seemed quite intense, and their enthusiasm spread through the rest.

On the day of graduation, he pulled Nodoka aside.

"Nodoka-san, I still haven't given you a proper answer to your confession," Negi began.

"Um…it's ok, Negi-sensei, I—"

"No, it's not proper for me to not give an answer," Negi said. "I don't understand liking a person in that way, so I'm afraid I can't give an answer now. I like you a lot, but I don't know if it is like that," he tried to explain. "Anyway," he said, pulling an object from his pocket, "They say that the artifact you get from a pactio reflects your own abilities. If that is so…" he paused for a moment. "I want you to have this," he said, pressing an object into Nodoka's hand. She inspected it carefully…it seemed to be a necklace with a charm of some sort.

"It's so pretty," she said, her eyes drawn in by the spiraling shape of the charm.

"It's a dreamgazer," Negi said. "It was in Gaze-san's pocket, I think he used it to give everyone those bad dreams. Ah, don't worry," he hastily added upon seeing the look on Nodoka's face. "It works according to the will of the user. I…I think it would be best if you were to have it. Anyway, good luck next year, Nodoka-san!" He left her standing there after that and ran away, feeling like a cad.

----

Much to his surprise, Zazie pulled him aside one day as he passed. "Take this," she said, placing a small object in his hand. He looked at the smooth gray stone curiously and the unusual symbol carved into it, so she explained. "If you need help." Then, for the first time, she hugged him and quickly went somewhere else.

'Was she...embarrassed?' Negi wondered.

----

3-A moved on to high school and Negi was assigned to a new class. He couldn't help but feel they were a bit subdued compared to his original class, but they were a good group of students in any case. And again...few of them were normal students. There were various incidents of course; there always were. But for the most part, it was a relaxing year.

He was finally assigned a room in the teacher's dorm, and though he missed living with Konoka and Asuna, he had to admit that he felt more like a real teacher now. And who would know or care if he accidentally summoned Asuna sometimes in his sleep when he was particularly lonely? She didn't seem to mind much, after all, as long as he didn't do it too often. None of the other teachers ever seemed to notice, though he was sure Takamichi at least must have known about it.

Eventually, that class graduated and moved on as well. Negi's training had made him powerful, and the time spent in Eva's resort left him much more mature, physically and mentally, than his official age would lead one to suspect.

Time passed, and his power grew to a level high enough to fulfill a promise he had made a long time ago.

He freed Eva from her curse.

She had been stunned to feel her power return in its entirety after all that time, and stunned again at the trust Negi placed in her. And in spite of her protestations that she was an evil mage who would go out and do terrible things, even a child could tell her words lacked the bite they would have had even a few years previous. In the end, she left Mahora with Chachamaru, Chachazero, and, surprisingly, Yotsuba Satsuki. The group traveled all over the world, stopping for a time here, making a short visit there, and overall simply going on an old fashioned 'Grand Tour'. She returned to the academy a year later, claiming boredom with the world and curiosity about how her various apprentices were doing; especially Misa, who had been doing quite well with darkness magic before Eva left.

When Negi's first class finally graduated high school, many things changed. Konoka, Setsuna, and surprisingly enough, Asuna, all went to the Konoe estate in Kyoto. Apparently, Eishun had fallen sick and Konoka had to go back to help run things while her father couldn't. Makie was set up for an arranged marriage and had to balance her gymnastics with the future prospect of a married life.

Chisame abruptly disappeared one day at the beginning of summer vacation and remained gone for three months. When she returned, she told wild stories of other worlds where albino zombies ran rampant and strangers wandered the campus, among other things. Tales of worlds much like her own, and tales of worlds drastically different. She had been many places and had many adventures before she found her way back to her own world, but was hesitant to tell any details.

Max Linell stayed on at Mahora as a PE teacher, while Jennifer and Akira worked in the city. Shortly after graduation, Akira moved into Max and Jennifer's shared apartment. It was rumored that they had a Ménage à trois type of arrangement, but everyone concerned denied it utterly. And besides, it wasn't as if people at Mahora wouldn't take a rumor and run with it.

The young gynoid Rally Wheeler became a common sight around campus, and during the time Chachamaru was off exploring the world with Evangeline and the others, she sent many letters and postcards to the younger robot, which Rally dutifully took great care of.

Hakase wrote a series of controversial papers on the nature of reality, and made a name for herself as someone who bucked the established scientific and mathematical system, and became one of the youngest people ever to win a Nobel Prize. She credited her amazing breakthroughs to a series of odd dreams she had had while in Negi's class.

But most of the others remained close to Mahora and Negi when they weren't off gallivanting around the world, and Negi trained hard every day, never forgetting the words Fate Averruncus had said.

----

Six years after the defeat of Gaze, an attractive young man walked through the halls of Mahora.

The first year female students stopped and stared, and many of the second and third years did as well. Cries of 'Wow!' and 'He's so hot!' would allow one to follow his progress through the hallways, if one so wished.

He stopped in front of a particular classroom and took one last glance over the new class roster. 'Looks like an interesting class again this year,' he thought to himself as he recalled the words Takamichi had said moments ago: _"Be careful, Negi-kun. This new class will be a lot like your first one."_

Judging by the pictures and names of the new students, that was definitely so.

He abruptly flipped the class roster shut and opened the door, smoothly sidestepped the falling eraser, which he caught, and approached the podium. Stepping over the three tripwires, he placed the eraser on the rail at the bottom of the chalkboard and turned to face the class, casually sidestepping the suction cup arrow that thudded into the chalkboard and became stuck there. Looking over them, they really did remind him of his first class. In fact, Evangeline was smirking at him from her old seat, while Chachamaru sat calmly in front of her. He recognized the other gynoid, Rally, the ghost Sayo-chan, and a few other students he had seen near the dorms or around campus the past few days. He smiled, and most of the class swooned.

"Hello everyone, I will be your teacher this year. My name is Negi Springfield."

----

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Author's Note: That's the end of this part of the story. If you're interested in the future, keep an eye open for part 3, which I should start posting before too long. Be prepared for all sorts of insanity as students new and old find new ways to drive Negi insane as he prepares for the his showdown with Fate.


End file.
